Research Article
Comparative and Socio-Demographic analysis among Working Women and Non- Working Women: A study on Reference Group Influence
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.18-12-2018.2283883, author={Semila Fenelly Fernandes and Rajesh Panda}, title={Comparative and Socio-Demographic analysis among Working Women and Non- Working Women: A study on Reference Group Influence}, proceedings={Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Conference on 4C’s-Communication, Commerce, Connectivity, Culture, SIMSARC 2018, 17-19 December 2018, Pune, MH, India}, publisher={EAI}, proceedings_a={SIMSARC}, year={2019}, month={9}, keywords={age demographic analysis education household income reference group influence women buying behavior}, doi={10.4108/eai.18-12-2018.2283883} }- Semila Fenelly Fernandes
Rajesh Panda
Year: 2019
Comparative and Socio-Demographic analysis among Working Women and Non- Working Women: A study on Reference Group Influence
SIMSARC
EAI
DOI: 10.4108/eai.18-12-2018.2283883
Abstract
Reference Group (RG) influence refers to conforming to group pressure which impacts consumers’ product purchases. Studies on Reference Group Influence(RGI) varies from men to women while studies indicated that women are more prone to RGI. Non-Working Women (NWW) and Working Women (WW) differ in their buying pattern as they are susceptible to RG. RGI takes three forms: informational reference group(IRG), utilitarian reference group(URG) and value-expressive reference group(VERG). The current study compares and analysis the socio-demographic variables like age, education and household income (HI) and its impact on the susceptibility of RGI among WW and NWW. The primary data collection included offline and web-based questionnaire. A total of 1044 responses were considered for the analysis (545 WW and 499 NWW) using convenience sampling. The data was analyzed using ANOVA and linear regression. When age-wise cross-comparison was undertaken among WW and NWW, the results suggested: significant differences between ‘mid-age’ NWW and ‘mid-age’ WW and its susceptibility across all three RGIs viz. IRG, URG and VERG. A mid-aged-NWW when compared with young-WW showed similar behavior towards its susceptibility on IRG, URG and VERG. Additionally, ‘elderly’ NWW and ‘mid-age’ WW, indicated differences in their susceptibility towards VERG influences. Education-wise cross-comparison revealed: significant association between ‘graduate’ NWW and WW having education level ‘PG&above’ towards IRG .