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The influence of gender roles in the drivers of luxury consumption for women: Insights from the gulf region

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posted on 2022-10-06, 05:39 authored by RW Semaan, V Lindsay, P Williams, Nicholas AshillNicholas Ashill
Luxury consumption is a complex phenomenon that has been shown to convey prestige, signal wealth, boost self-esteem, and express self-concept and identity. Many of the earlier studies have been conducted in Western societies, and lack a detailed understanding of how culture and demographics such as gender may influence such consumption. In this exploratory study, we unravel the complexity further, and explore the drivers of luxury consumption among Gulf Arab women. Utilizing focus groups comprising 31 Gulf Arab females, we gain a deeper understanding of luxury consumption and evaluate the respective drivers in this context. Grounded in social role theory, we find a striking contrast between our results and the drivers of Gulf Arab female luxury consumers as predicted by extant theory. Specifically, Gulf Arab women displayed a number of independent and agentic behaviors in their luxury consumption, which contrasts to their social role in the Gulf Arab society that is often more communal and interdependent. We suggest a number of theoretical and practical implications from our study.

History

Preferred citation

Semaan, R. W., Lindsay, V., Williams, P. & Ashill, N. (2019). The influence of gender roles in the drivers of luxury consumption for women: Insights from the gulf region. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 51, 165-175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.06.006

Journal title

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

Volume

51

Publication date

2019-11-01

Pagination

165-175

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Publication status

Published

ISSN

0969-6989

eISSN

1873-1384

Language

en