Apparel Expenditure Variation among US Households Headed by Baby Boomers

Abstract

The sheer size of the American baby boom generation has caused this generation to receive considerable attention throughout its lifetime. Generally, baby boomers are treated as a homogeneous group, but given the eighteen-year age span, this practice bas been questioned. This study examined whether significant differences in apparel expenditures exist among subsets of baby boomers. Data from the 1998 Consumer Expenditure Survey were used to estimate expenditure equations for several apparel categories. Differences among younger and older baby boomers were found, suggesting that it may be an over simplification to treat all boomers as one group.