Abstract

The purposes of this study are as follows: 1) To estimate the amounts of differences in service expenditures resulting from the effects of mother's marital and employment status. 2) To find out the relationship of socio-economic variables to expenditures for time-saving durables and services Data were taken from the 1988-1989 Consumer Expenditure Survey. The sample consisted of 2,216 families with 334 single-mother families and 1,792 married-mother families. Tobit regres-sion analyses were used to test of variables related to expenditures for (a) food away from home. (b) clothing care (c) child care (d) domestic services and (e) total services. The results of this study were as follows; 1) The percentage difference from non-employed married-mother families was higher for employed single-mother families than for other types of families indicating the positive effect on expenditures on market substitutes of mother's marital and employment status. 2) The father's wage rate was associated only with expenditures for domestic services. A positive relationship was found between family nonlabor income and domestic services Total family income was positively associated with expenditues for all dependent variables. There was a negative relationship between expenditures for child care and age of mother squared. Mother's education was associated with expenditures in all categories. Families of nonwhite spent less on time-saving durables. food away from home, and total services and spent more on apparel services than families of white mothers. The presence of young child was positively related to total services and child care services and negatively related to food away from home.

Keywords