A Lifestyle Analysis of Female Consumers in Greater ChinaSusan H. C. Tai and Jackie L. M. Tam

ABSTRACT

This study compares the lifestyles of female consumers in HongKong, Taiwan, and China, which together make up Greater China.The investigation revealed that significant differences exist amongthe three groups of female consumers in nine different areas. Theseare (a) women’s role and perception, (b) family orientation, (c) homecleanliness, (d) brand consciousness, (e) price consciousness,(f) self-confidence, (g) addiction to work, (h) health consciousness,and (i) environmental consciousness. Although the women studied in the three groups were found to be heavily influenced byConfucianism, they were also affected by western culture to varyingdegrees. Thus, the three groups were found to have a mixture oftraditional and modern values. Hong Kong women were found tofavor a more modern view of the role of women than theircounterparts in China and Taiwan. However, women in China,especially the younger ones, were quickly adopting new values andWestern ideas. The authors foresee that female consumers in GreaterChina will become increasingly similar in their lifestyles in the nearfuture. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Taiwan and Hong Kong are ranked with Singapore and South Koreaas the “Four Pacific Dragons.” The Far Eastern Economic Review(1992) reported that the economic development of Hong Hong wouldbe increasingly dependent on the China factor, as China opens up itsmarket and experiences rapid economic growth. Taiwan was said to be

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ahead of the other Asian dragons and was attempting to turn its capi-tal city into one of Asia Pacific’s leading regional centers. The reportalso pointed out that although China’s relations with Taiwan andHong Kong were shaded by diplomatic rivalry, political tension, and apervasive lack of trust, at the human level the three continued to formcloser ties.

The increasing interaction between Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinais creating a powerful, new economic entity. By the year 2000, theGreater China economic region will be a truly significant force in theworld economy. Asian and Media Advertising (1992) reported thatthese markets, mainly populated by Chinese, were closely located butdivided by historical events that have created a distinct economic andcultural environment in each market. Hong Kong has been a Britishcolony for many years and the people were exposed to western culturemuch earlier than they were in Taiwan. Hong Kong people are, there-fore more Westernized, and the English language is more widely usedin business communication. The people of Taiwan, on the other hand,were reported to be more traditional, more nationalistic, and heavilyinfluenced by Japanese culture. Consumers in China were not exposedto western ideas until China implemented its open-door policy in 1979.They rely heavily on advertising or word of mouth for information.Hence, each market has its own characteristics and is exposed to a dif-ferent degree of political influence.

In recent years, there have been some profound changes in con-sumer lifestyles in Greater China. According to Asia’s Media and Mar-keting Weekly (1994), the changing role of women, the aging of society,trends toward delayed marriage, smaller families, and single parentshave combined to redefine the consumer markets in Greater China.Traditional household decision making is undergoing significantchanges as a larger number of women join the work force. As womennow have greater purchasing power, marketers need to have a betterunderstanding of women’s changing values and roles in modern soci-ety.

One approach to studying women’s behavior is by exploring howwomen feel about their lives, their attitudes toward their work, andhow they approach the various aspects of life that lead to the con-sumption of many products and services. This study aims to comparethe lifestyles of female consumers within Greater China. Significantdifferences are expected to be found among different age groups ofChinese females, as well as between working women and housewives.A woman in her 40s or a housewife is likely to exhibit differentlifestyle characteristics than a woman in her 20s or a career woman,even within the same region. In order to make a direct comparison oflifestyles across the three regions, only working females aged between18 and 35 were chosen for the study. This group also makes up a rela-tively large percentage of the female population in the three regions

and appears to be a very lucrative target for the marketers. The sam-ples were selected from the cities of Hong Kong, Taipei, andGuangzhou.

Characteristics of Chinese Female Consumers

Asia’s Media and Marketing Weekly (1992) reported that in the 1990s,as Asian and Chinese women increasingly move out of the home andinto the workplace, marketers are waking up to the fact that womenare exerting a greater influence on a variety of consumer decisionsthat used to lie within the sole domain of men. Accordingly, companiesare starting to direct their marketing efforts toward working women.As women begin to view themselves differently, the marketing indus-try is also changing the way women are portrayed. In the past, adver-tising generally portrayed women in the context of the home: cooking,cleaning, and caring for their husbands and children. Multinationals,however, are cautious about challenging the norms, so Chinese womenare still depicted as pretty girls, only now they are shown with brief-cases and mobile phones.

In a survey conducted by the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1993,affluent Asian women showed a greater preference for quality overquantity in all aspects of their lives. They preferred to have a less pol-luted environment, and more leisure time, and they also appreciatedvalue more than prestige. Convenience was, thus, becoming the mostpopular focus of marketing directed at Asian women. A report in theWall Street Journal (1993) stated that the regions’ increasingly busyconsumers were looking for ways to simplify their lives and were will-ing to pay for the right solutions. The desire to save time was revolu-tionizing how Asian women shopped. The article added thatself-service food stores and convenience chains were replacing family-run shops and street markets. Time-saving products such as 2-in-1shampoos, which combine shampoo and conditioner, were a hit withworking women.

Women in Hong Kong

Hong Kong people place particular value on achievement and materialgoods. This view was confirmed by Asia’s Media and Marketing Weekly(1990), which reported that the pace of life in Hong Kong was fasterthan in Taiwan and China, and that Hong Kong workers were moredriven to succeed and more materialistic. Yet the rapid materialchanges experienced by Hong Kong society during the past fewdecades have not been accompanied by a substantial transformationin consumption attitudes and behavior. Hong Kong people still hold onto many traditional attitudes and influence how they respond to ad-vertising messages and what they buy.

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It was reported in Asia’s Media and Marketing (1993) that thebiggest change in consumer attitudes among the Hong Kong Chinesecould be seen in the younger generation. They were more interested inliving in the present, rather than saving their money for the future,which may be linked to their uncertainty over 1997. This “live for to-day” philosophy has a substantial effect on the spending pattern of thecommunity.

It was also reported that women in Hong Kong were achievingsteady gains in education and work and were attaining considerableeconomic power. As a result, women were making more decisions re-lated to household spending, including big ticket items such as cars,and they were playing a major role in the buying process. The reportcontinued that although women believed in careers and financial inde-pendence, they still strongly adhered to the traditional view ofwomen’s role in the home and family. They were also very status con-scious and concerned about how they were being perceived by otherpeople.

Women in Taiwan

Over the past 40 years, Taiwan has proposed economically and hasseen a remarkable rise in living standards. Taiwan has a population of20.6 million people and the capital, Taipei, is the biggest city, with apopulation of 2.6 million (Republic of China Year Book, 1993). Asia’sMedia and Marketing (1994) described Taiwan as a market where tra-ditional values persisted, where little English was spoken, and wherethe West had just begun to influence lifestyle and aspirations. Accord-ing to the report, Taiwanese customs and social practices emphasizedthe Confucian principles of familial loyalty, obedience, and respect.Contemporary Taiwanese female consumers were searching for theequivalent of traditional Confucian status symbols in modern-daygoods. Consumption choices were not always based on function, butmore on the prestigious image of imported foreign brands.

Survey Research Taiwan estimated that 60% of Taiwan’s populationwas under 35 years old, with shopping being the main pastime for thislarge and affluent group. Asian Media and Advertising (1989) de-scribed young Taiwanese women as especially brand-conscious whenbuying clothes and accessories. American brands, which were the firstto enter Taiwan, are highly regarded in the surging Taiwanese con-sumer market. The most successful products in Taiwan are “foreign inimage and local in usability.” With economic growth and increased ex-posure to the western world, Taiwanese women’s tastes have becomemore sophisticated and are moving towards the high-end of the mar-ket. The women, educated and affluent, are willing to spend their savings on imported products, despite the fact that these are compara-tively more expensive than local goods.

Women in China

China, with a population of over 1.2 billion people, is experiencing avirtual explosion of consumer spending. Consumers’ preferences arealso beginning to change significantly. Rising consumer demand hasbeen brought about by a substantial increase in income and by chang-ing demographics. Hang Seng Economic Monthly (1993) stated that al-most half of China’s population was between 15 and 39 years of age,and that this group was more willing than previous generations to ab-sorb new products and ideas.

It was also reported in Hang Seng Economic Monthly that the Chi-nese market was a collection of heterogeneous submarkets with dis-tinct spending patterns. Consumption power in southern China wasgenerally higher than in the north, but the people in the north tendedto be more selective. For instance, consumers in Shanghai were morereceptive to international fashion styles and trends, whereas people inGuangzhou, who had greater purchasing power, were heavily influ-enced by Hong Kong.

China in Focus (1995) reported that during the 1931–1949 revolu-tion, which led to the creation of the People’s Republic of China,women played an equal role in the building of a new China. Aswomen’s education and their participation in the work force grew,their status improved. However, the goal of absolute equality betweenthe sexes remain unfulfilled and gender-role differences were openlyadmitted. The potential of the female consumer market in China islarge. As more women become wealthier and increasingly sophisti-cated, they demand higher-quality products with new and diversifieddesigns. Younger women in particular are becoming very fashion con-scious and are able to indulge in costly foreign brands.

PREVIOUS LIFESTYLE RESEARCH

Lifestyle research is a quantitative research procedure to determinehow people spend time and money, in terms of activities, interests, andopinions. The AIO statements, as described in Plummer (1974), mea-sure (a) activities: how people spend their time and money, (b) Inter-ests: what they consider to be of importance in their immediatesurroundings, and (c) opinions: how they feel about themselves andthe world around them. Wells (1974) suggested that the AIO state-ments can be either general or product specific, and either standard-ized or ad hoc in scale. The choice of statements depends on theobjective of the study and it is possible to use either one or both typesmentioned above.

The concept of lifestyle and its relationship to marketing was firstintroduced by Lazer (1963). Since then, much lifestyle research, using

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AIO variables, has been conducted. The studies include Wells andTigert (1971); Plummer (1974, 1977); Reynolds and Crask (1977);Douglas and Urban (1977); Roberts and Wortzel (1979); Venkatesh(1980); Cosmas (1982); Aaker, Fuse, and Reynolds (1982); Wells (1985);Parameswaran and Yaprak (1987); Lesch, Luk, and Leonard (1991);and Hui, Joy, Kim, and Laroche (1993). Despite the large body oflifestyle studies, very little research has focused on the Asia Pacific region.

Lifestyle information is very useful for product positioning and mar-ket segmentation, and also helps multinationals to understand con-sumers in different cultures (Plummer, 1974, 1977). Douglas andUrban (1977) conducted a study to compare the patterning of women’slifestyles in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Thestudy found that the pattern and underlying dimension of women’slifestyles were very similar in all three countries, although specific at-titude statements, which characterized each factor, differed from coun-try to country. They concluded that the implications of differences inlifestyle patterning varied from one product class to another, and thatthe findings concerning the response of specific customer targets toproducts or marketing strategies in one country could not always beeasily applied to another country.

Tai and Tam (1997) examined the similarities and differences of thelifestyles between Hong Kong and Singapore consumers. Their resultsshowed that the major difference between Hong Kong and Singaporeconsumers lies in cultural and traditional values. Hong Kong con-sumers were generally more traditional and conservative, and it wasrecommended that marketers accommodate the norms and customs oftheir target consumers when developing brand positioning.

Although lifestyle data are very useful in market segmentation andin developing international marketing strategy, Wells (1975) suggestedthat marketers have to be cautious when choosing lifestyle variablesin their studies, as these variables are not as stable as demographicvariables.

METHODOLOGY

Questionnaire Design

A rigorous review of the literature on lifestyle-related research pre-ceded the development of the questionnaire for the present study. Thefinal version of the questionnaire consisted of three parts. The firstpart comprised the interest and opinion statements, the second partcontained frequency of participation activity statements, and the thirdpart consisted of items related to demographic information. The selec-tion of lifestyle statements for this study was based on three criteria:relevance to women, value to marketers, and measurability.

The questionnaire contained both standardized and ad hoc lifestylestatements. The reason for using a standardized scale was that thescale had already been tested by different researchers for reliabilityand validity, and ad hoc lifestyle statements were used to gain betterinsight into the significant differences in social and cultural valuesacross the three regions.

Sample Design

The target population was white-collar working women between theages of 18 and 35. The objective of the survey was to obtain threegroups of females matched in terms of age, rather than the groups’representativeness of the female working population in each region, inorder to facilitate a more meaningful evaluation of the similarities anddifferences among the groups. Samples were drawn from the commer-cial districts of Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Taipei.

A quota sampling method was used. The questionnaires were dis-patched to respondents in Taipei in the summer of 1993, and re-sponses were collected through personal interviews, using the samequestionnaire, within a 6-month period in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.After a preliminary analysis of the data, the number of usable ques-tionnaires for analysis was 188 from Taipei, 182 from Guangzhou, and188 from Hong Kong.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Demographic Characteristics

Respondents from Taiwan and Hong Kong were comparable with re-spect to marital status. Although the majority of respondents in thesetwo regions were single, more than half of those in China were married,despite the similar age distribution across the three groups. The distrib-ution of education levels attained by Taiwan and China respondentswas very similar in that more than 60% of them had achieved univer-sity-level education. In contrast, the education level of Hong Kong re-spondents was much lower. Only 19.1% had attained university-leveleducation. Although Taiwan and China respondents on average had at-tained a higher education level than Hong Kong respondents, the HongKong sample contained a relatively larger proportion of administratorsand managers. See Table 1.

Factor Analysis of Lifestyle Variables

A principal-component factor analysis was performed on the lifestylevariables for each group to assess the stability of the dimensions acrossthe groups. Variables that had low correlations with other variables

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and had low loadings on the factors were removed. As a result, 36lifestyle variables were retained. A scree test and eigenvalues greaterthan 1 were selected as the criteria in determining the number of fac-tors to be extracted. A varimax rotation procedure was also performedto facilitate the interpretation of each factor. It was found that the fac-tor solutions across the three groups were comparable. Thus, the threesamples were pooled and a principal-component factor analysis wasconducted on the whole sample. The purpose of conducting the factoranalysis at this stage was to extract the underlying lifestyle dimen-sions and then to use the factor scores in a discriminate analysis.

Table 1. Summary of Demographic Characteristics of Respondents.

Taiwan Hong Kong ChinaDemographic Variables (%) (%) (%)

Age18–25 34.6 34.6 36.326–30 48.4 44.1 46.231–35 17.0 20.2 17.6

Marital StatusSingle 79.3 72.9 44.5Married 20.2 26.1 53.3Divorced 0.5 1.10 2.2

Number of ChildrenNone 13.8 17.0 17.6One 8.5 9.0 37.4Two 5.9 7.4 2.7Three 1.6 0.0 0.0

Educational AttainmentSecondary level 9.6 58.5 6.0Postsecondary level 16.0 12.2 8.8University level 60.1 19.1 69.8Professional level 11.2 9.0 11.0

OccupationProfessional 22.9 22.3 14.3Managerial/Administrative 5.3 11.7 1.6Technical 2.1 3.7 10.4White Collar 62.2 53.2 68.1

Personal IncomeBelow $10,000 71.3* 47.9* 15.4a

$10,001–$20,000 28.2* 41.5* 30.2b

$20,001–$30,000 0.5* 6.9* 20.3c

$30,001–$40,000 0.0* 3.8* 23.1d

*Incomes have been converted to Hong Kong dollars except for the China group.aRepresents Yuan below 500.b501–1500.c1501–2000.d2001–2500.

Twelve factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, accounted for 60.4%of the total variance extracted. After a closer examination of the load-ing on the factors, a name was given to each factor according to thecontent of the variables making the greatest contribution to each ofthe dimensions. Cronbach’s alpha coefficiencies were computed to as-sess the internal consistency among the set of items on each factor,and they were found to be in the range of 0.47–0.73. Nunnally (1978)suggested that in the early stages of research, modest reliability in therange of 0.50 to 0.60 will suffice. In Peter’s (1979) study reviewing thereliability assessment of marketing measures, the lowest coefficient al-pha reported was 0.514 and the highest coefficient alpha was 0.98. Be-cause this study was not in applied settings, the reliability of thescales was considered as acceptable. Table 2 summarizes the results ofthe factor analysis.

Each of the lifestyle statements was measured on a 6-point scale,with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 6 representing “stronglyagree.” In order to better understand the similarities and differencesin lifestyles between the three groups, the statements were condensedby combining 1–3 in the “disagree” category and 4–6 in the “agree”category. Table 3 shows the percentage of each group that agreed withthe statements. The following is a brief description of each factor in or-der of its contribution to the total variance.

Factor 1: Women’s Role and Perception. This factor accounted forthe largest variance among the three groups of female consumers. Itcontained five statements, one of which had a reversed scale. The ma-jority of the females in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China agreed thatboth husband and wife should share the housework and decide onany major purchases together. They also tended to agree that malesand females should be treated equally at work, and women shouldseek their own careers. However, with respect to the view that awoman’s place is in the home, the proportion of Hong Kong womenagreeing with this statement was significantly lower than in Taiwanand China.

Hong Kong women appeared to possess a more modern view of therole of women than their counterparts. Although they have madesteady gains in education and at work in recent years, and haveachieved considerable economic power, they were still expected to ful-fill traditional roles as mothers and wives while developing their ca-reers. Taiwanese women, in general, strongly identified withtraditional Chinese symbols and accepted new definitions of women’sroles as they received higher education and became more independentfinancially. Younger women, in particular, blended Western culturewell with their traditional Chinese values.

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Table 2. Summary of Factor Analysis Results.

Lifestyle Factors Means Loadings

Women’s role and perception (a 5 0.53)Husband and wife should both share the housework 5.45 0.69050Men and women should be treated equally at work 5.39 0.58757Women should seek their own careers 5.02 0.57115On any major purchase, the husband and wife should decide together what to buy 5.35 0.52554A woman’s place is in the home(*) 3.77 0.41910

Family orientation (a 5 0.65)My family is the most important thing to me 4.90 0.67455Youngsters should have more respect for the elders 5.53 0.65157I listen to the advice of elders 4.46 0.61923I am always proud to have a close-knit family 4.89 0.53748

Brand consciousness (a 5 0.71)I am willing to pay higher prices for famous brands 3.28 0.79156I care for well-known brands rather than their quality 2.59 0.77486I prefer to buy foreign brands than local brands 3.58 0.71919

Home orientation (a 5 0.57)I would rather spend a quiet evening with my family than go out to meet friends 3.48 0.70983I am a traditional and conservative person 3.54 0.70949I am a homebody 3.19 0.66005

Self-confidence (a 5 0.62)I think I have more self-confidence than most people of my age 4.08 0.77984I will probably get a job promotion in the near future 3.86 0.63038When I set my mind to achieve something, I usually can achieve it 4.43 0.62147

(*)–The scale has been reversed.

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Addiction to work (a 5 0.56)I am a workaholic 3.01 0.76142Work is an important part of my life 4.23 0.67405I always work in the office after office hours or during weekends 2.49 0.55525

Price consciousness (a 5 0.60)I shop a lot for specials 3.48 0.79841I usually watch the advertisements for announcements of sales 3.58 0.77149I check the prices even on small items 3.45 0.60000

Political interests (a 5 0.73)I always keep myself informed of the latest changes in politics 3.48 0.80701I am interested in reading news on political and economic affairs 3.70 0.80457

Environmental consciousness (a 5 0.63)I am willing to pay a little bit higher prices to buy green products 3.95 0.80419I frequently purchase products which claim to be environmental friendly 2.52 0.77791

Weight watching (a 5 0.52)No matter how busy I am, I always find time each week to do a few hours of exercises 3.30 0.70544I am careful in what I eat in order to keep my weight under control 3.90 0.67329To maintain a nice figure, exercise is very important 5.12 0.52136

Home cleanliness (a 5 0.47)I feel uncomfortable when my house is not completely clean 4.92 0.76288I always keep my house very neat and tidy 4.76 0.63715My home is furnished for comfort, not for style 5.17 0.37424

Health consciousness (a 5 0.50)I am more health conscious than most of my friends 4.32 0.71909I frequently purchase “health food” / “natural food” 3.31 0.69353

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Table 3. Lifestyle Characteristics of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China Females.

Taiwan Hong Kong ChinaLifestyle Factors (%) (%) (%)

Women’s role and perception (a 5 0.53)Husband and wife should both share the housework 99.5 96.8 94.0Men and women should be treated equally at work 96.8 89.9 95.1Women should seek their own careers 93.1 95.2 94.5On any major purchase, the husband and wife should decide together what to buy 97.9 92.0 96.2A woman’s place is in the home(*) 46.3 34.0 55.5

Family orientation (a 5 0.65)My family is the most important thing to me 94.7 79.8 89.6Youngsters should have more respect for the elders 98.4 95.2 98.4I listen to advice of elders 84.6 78.7 89.6I am always proud to have a close-knit family 84.6 78.2 94.5

Brand consciousness (a 5 0.71)I am willing to pay higher prices for famous brands 43.6 48.9 45.1I care for well-known brands rather than their quality 21.3 19.7 40.1I prefer to buy foreign brands than local brands 48.4 55.9 59.9

Home orientation (a 5 0.57)I would rather spend a quiet evening with my family than go out to meet friends 54.3 34.0 58.2I am a traditional and conservative person 60.1 49.5 51.1I am a homebody 47.9 31.9 48.9

Self-confidence (a 5 0.62)I think I have more self-confidence than most people of my age 69.1 67.0 74.7I will probably get a job promotion in the near future 69.1 60.6 58.8When I set my mind to achieve something, I usually can achieve it 82.4 81.4 80.8

(*)–The scale has been reversed.

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Addiction to work (a 5 0.56)I am a workaholic 44.1 42.0 24.2Work is an important part of my life 75.5 75.0 48.6I always work in the office after office hours or during weekends 20.2 26.6 24.2

Price consciousness (a 5 0.60)I shop a lot for specials 56.9 53.7 34.1I usually watch the advertisements for announcements of sales 59.0 48.4 46.2I check the prices even on small items 57.4 41.5 45.1

Political interests (a 5 0.73)I always keep myself informed of the latest changes in politics 51.1 39.4 67.6I am interested in reading news on political and economic affairs 57.4 45.2 75.3

Environmental consciousness (a 5 0.63)I am willing to pay a little bit higher prices to buy green products 83.5 52.1 62.6I frequently purchase products which claim to be environmental friendly 22.3 13.8 26.4

Weight watching (a 5 0.52)No matter how busy I am, I always find time each week to do a few hours of exercises 41.5 30.9 53.3I am careful in what I eat in order to keep my weight under control 59.0 61.7 67.6To maintain a nice figure, exercise is very important 92.0 87.8 95.1

Home cleanliness (a 5 0.47)I feel uncomfortable when my house is not completely clean 92.6 83.5 89.0I always keep my house very neat and tidy 90.4 81.9 92.9My home is furnished for comfort, not for style 98.4 93.1 93.4

Health consciousness (a 5 0.50)I am more health conscious than most of my friends 75.5 64.9 81.9I frequently purchase “health food” / “natural food” 35.1 31.4 67.0

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There has been a great change in the perception of gender rolesamong women in China. Women were traditionally valued according tothe sacrifices they made for men. In a recent survey carried out byAsia Week (1993), 40% of the couples interviewed in Guangzhou re-portedly shared housework, whereas 76% of the sample in Shanghaisaid that they shared the tasks at home. Sixty percent of the couplesmade purchasing decisions together. Many women took “helping withhousework” as one of the criteria when choosing a husband, and manywanted to establish their own careers. However, the majority of menstill expected women to make only moderate changes to their tradi-tional roles.

Factor 2: Family Orientation. Women in Taiwan and China werefound to be more family oriented than Hong Kong females. The propor-tion of the Chinese and Taiwanese women agreeing with the followingstatements “My family is the most important thing to me,” “I listen tothe advice of my elders,” and “I am always proud to have a close-knitfamily” were significantly higher than that of women in Hong Kong.

Most families in Hong Kong were willing to work hard, make sacri-fices for their children’s education, and to acquire their own accommo-dation. Although Hong Kong women were fully exposed to Westernculture, they were quite conservative in their attitudes and values to-ward family and marriage. Compared with Western societies, HongKong still has a distinctively lower divorce rate, even though there hasbeen a significant increase over the past decade. Traditional Confucianvalues remain a predominant influence on Hong Kong women’s behav-ioral patterns.

Taiwanese women were found to be even more influenced by Confu-cianism than Hong Kong women. Their philosophy of living empha-sized the family system, and they had a strong sense of familyresponsibility. In China, the traditional view toward marriage has alsodeclined in recent years, under the influence of contemporary andWestern culture. It was reported in China in Focus (1993) that the di-vorce rate increased 135% from 1980 to 1990.

Factors 3 and 4: Home Orientation and Cleanliness. Women inTaiwan and China were more home oriented than were their HongKong counterparts. The majority agreed that they would rather spenda quiet evening with their families than go out to meet friends, andconsidered themselves as traditionalists. This indicates that women inTaiwan and China are more traditional and claim to be homebodies,whereas Hong Kong women are more career minded and independent.

A few differences were also found between the three groups on indi-vidual items under home cleanliness, although the majority of themagreed with the following statements, “My home is furnished for com-fort, not for style,” and “I feel uncomfortable when my house is not

completely clean.” The majority of Hong Kong families employed a do-mestic helper, especially if the woman was a working wife with youngchildren. As a result, Hong Kong women were devoted to establishingtheir careers and maintaining their own circle of friends. They werefound to be less home oriented than their counterparts in this study.

Factors 5 and 6: Brand and Price Consciousness. The women inChina were found to be the most brand conscious and the least pricesensitive of the three groups. Although more Hong Kong womenagreed that they were willing to pay higher prices for brand-namegoods, the proportion of Chinese women caring about well-knownbrands and prepared to buy foreign brands was significantly higherthan the proportion of their counterparts in Hong Kong and Taiwan.In fact, Chinese women perceived foreign brands to be a status symboland to be superior to local brands. They sought the prestige associatedwith the image of the brand, regardless of the value of the product. Incontrast, Hong Kong women were changing from brand consciousnessto a value-seeking attitude.

Taiwanese women were less likely to pay higher prices for famousbrands and did not have a preference for foreign brands. They werefound to be more price conscious and tended to shop around a greatdeal more for bargains, compared to their counterparts in Hong Kongand China. They compared prices even on small items and usuallypaid attention to advertisements for the announcements of sales.

Factors 7 and 8: Self-Confidence and Addiction to Work. Thethree groups exhibited a similar degree of self-confidence; however,Taiwanese females were found to be more optimistic about theirchances of job promotion than their counterparts in Hong Kong andChina. The three groups also agreed that work was an important partof their lives; however, with regard to their enthusiasm for work, morethan 40% of the Taiwan and Hong Kong respondents admitted thatthey were workaholics, whereas only about 24% of the China respon-dents made the same admission. In spite of this, the percentage of Chi-nese women working overtime after office hours or during weekendswas higher than the percentage of Taiwanese women but lower thanthat of Hong Kong women. It was also found that young female em-ployees were less addicted to work than their elder counterparts, asthe demand for leisure and the pursuit of individual interests keepspace with the growing affluence of society.

Factors 9 and 10: Weight and Health Consciousness. The womenin China were slightly more weight conscious and concerned abouttheir appearance than their counterparts. About 53% of the Chinesewomen surveyed agreed that they would find time to do a few hours of exercise no matter how busy they were. In comparison, 42% of

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Taiwanese women and 31% of Hong Kong women said they would dothe same. About 68% of the women in China agreed that they werecareful in what they ate in order to keep their weight under control.The Chinese women were also more health conscious and they tendedto purchase health food more often than the women in Hong Kong andTaiwan.

Factor 11: Political Interests. Chinese women were found to be themost interested in political affairs of the three groups. They were moresensitive to political issues that had a substantial effect on their lives.They kept up to date on the latest changes in politics and were moreinterested in reading news on political and economic affairs. Tai-wanese women showed a modest interest in political affairs, whereasHong Kong women expressed the least interest in political affairs.

Factor 12: Environmental Consciousness. Taiwanese and Chinesewomen were more environmentally conscious than Hong Kong women.More agreed to being “willing to pay a slightly higher price for greenproducts,” and the amount and frequency of purchases of “green” prod-ucts made by female consumers were significantly higher in Taiwanand China than in Hong Kong. This finding might be due to the factthat the women in China considered imported “green” products to befashionable, and were therefore willing to pay higher prices to keep upwith the trend.

Discriminant Analysis

Factor scores for each respondent were computed by the regressionmethod and then used in discriminant analysis. The purpose of thediscriminant analysis was to determine the differences of lifestyles be-tween the three groups with the use of the 12 derived lifestyle factors.Two discriminant functions were derived and both were found to bestatistically significant at the 1% level.

The first function accounted for 71.41% of the variance with aneigenvalue greater than 0.6340 and had a canonical correlation of0.6229. An analysis of variance was conducted for each factor and sig-nificant differences were found between the group means at the 5%level for the following lifestyle factors: Women’s Role and Perception,Family Orientation, Brand Consciousness, Self-confidence, Addictionto Work, Price Consciousness, Environmental Consciousness, HomeCleanliness, and Health Consciousness.

The centroid for the Taiwan group, with the use of the first discrimi-nant function, was 20.19429; for the Hong Kong group it was20.74645; and for the China group it was 1.61828. The centroid of theTaiwan group was closer to the centroid of the Hong Kong group than

to that of the China group. A closer review of the first discriminantfunction loadings revealed that the first function corresponded mostclosely to Addiction to Work, Brand Consciousness, Women’s Role andPerception, and Health Consciousness. These factors distinguished thelifestyles of the women in Taiwan and Hong Kong from those in China.The primary lifestyle factors on the second discriminant function,which separated the Taiwan group from the other two groups, wereEnvironmental Consciousness, Self-Confidence, and Family orienta-tion. The results of the discriminant analysis are presented in Table 4.

In order to assess the validation of the discriminant results, thesample was randomly divided into two halves. One half of the respon-dents were used to develop the discriminant function, and the otherhalf was used for validation purposes. The hit ratio for the analysissample was 66.67%, whereas for the holdout sample it was 64.26%.The maximum chance criterion and the proportional chance criterionwere used to assess the classification accuracy. The maximum chancecriterion obtained was 37.83% and the proportional chance criterionwas computed to be 33.68%. Because the hit ratios for both the analy-sis sample and holdout sample exceeded the two criterion measures,this confirms that the discriminant analysis predicts more accuratelythan chance.

With the use of the analysis sample, the discriminant function cor-rectly classified 65.5% of the Taiwanese women, 61.4% of the HongKong women, and 74.7% of the women in China. The classification re-sults for the analysis sample are presented in Table 5. The predictedvalues for the holdout sample were 65.3%, 60.9%, and 66% respec-tively, and they were not statistically different from the results for theanalysis sample at the 5% level.

303LIFESTYLE ANALYSIS OF CHINESE FEMALE CONSUMERS

Table 4. Summary of Three-Group Discriminant Analysis Results.

StandardizedCoefficients Univariate

Lifestyle Factors Function 1 Loadings F Ratios

Women’s role and perception 0.34755 0.54391 7.433*Family orientation 0.08513 0.38823 4.435*Brand consciousness 0.48300 0.26022 13.85*Home orientation 2 0.01954 2 0.21487 0.7098Self-confidence 2 0.25395 0.09126 7.475*Addiction to work 0.71062 2 0.18833 25.89*Price consciousness 0.31808 0.01742 6.045*Political interests 0.11070 0.30897 0.6349Environmental consciousness 2 0.04832 0.18615 6.785*Weight watching 2 0.11767 2 0.00244 1.166Home cleanliness 0.45312 2 0.00319 11.45*Health consciousness 2 0.40115 0.04664 3.994*

*Significant at 0.05.

304 TAI AND TAM

CONCLUSION AND MARKETING IMPLICATIONS

The working women in the three regions were heavily influenced byConfucianism and traditional values in their views on women’s roles,families, and homes. Although the women in Hong Kong exercised sub-stantial financial power as they rose in the business world, most ofthem still shared many of the attitudes held by their mothers andgrandmothers. It was only a matter of degree to which females inChina and Taiwan were more traditional than women in Hong Kong.Women in China, especially the younger ones, had changed their atti-tudes towards marriage and were more career minded. Thus, the gapbetween women in China and their counterparts in Taiwan and HongKong has narrowed.

Female consumers in China were reported to be more brand con-scious than their counterparts, as they were strongly attracted to im-ported goods, regardless of their value and quality. Hong Kong womenhad become more value seeking and quality conscious, whereas Tai-wanese women, apart from the younger ones, were comparativelymore price conscious. More women in Taiwan and Hong Kong were re-ported to be workaholics than Chinese women, and the youngerwomen in general were less addicted to work and showed more de-mand for leisure time. However, women in China were the mostweight and health conscious of the three groups. Women in China andTaiwan were also more environmentally conscious than Hong Kongwomen.

It can be concluded that women in the three groups were influencedby Western culture to different degrees and were found to have a mix-ture of traditional and modern values. Hong Kong women were foundto hold a more modern view of the role of women than their counter-parts. However, women in China were picking up new values andWestern ideas very rapidly. The authors foresee that female consumers

Table 5. Classification Results of Analysis Sample.

Actual SamplePredicted Group Membership

Group Size Taiwan Hong Kong China Total

Taiwan 87 57 18 12 87(65.5%) (20.7%) (13.9%)

Hong Kong 101 30 62 9 101(29.7%) (61.4%) (8.9%)

China 79 13 7 59 79(16.5%) (8.9%) (74.7%)

Total 267 100 87 80 267

within Greater China will become more and more similar in theirlifestyles in the near future.

As women become more career minded, prefer living independently,and play the dual role of professional worker and mother/wife, market-ing strategy should be tailored to meet their special needs and beaware of their self-image. Chinese women in Greater China still desirea feminine image, because most of them have not yet discarded olderbeliefs on traditional women’s roles.

When formulating a segmentation strategy for the Greater Chinafemale consumer market, it is suggested that the target group in theHong Kong market be young, married women who have substantialearnings and decision-making power. For the Taiwan market, it wouldbe most profitable to target younger working women who are eager tofollow the latest trend in foreign markets and willing to spend moneyon brand-name goods. In contrast, the biggest market in China is ma-ture women in their 30s, who are the decision makers, users, and influ-ential force in their families. They also prefer imported goods andtop-class, brand-name products.

Concerning the feasibility of employing just one strategy for theGreater China female consumer market, marketers should considerthe cross-cultural similarities rather than the cross-cultural differ-ences. The women in the three groups actually share many tradi-tional values toward the home and family. If market brands aredirected at young working women, a regional approach is feasible, asthe younger women in Greater China are more likely to share thesame attitudes and lifestyles. Because significant differences werealso found along many lifestyle dimensions between women in thethree groups, marketers should proceed with caution when choosingto adopt a common strategy for the Greater China female consumermarket.

LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONSFOR FUTURE STUDY

This study focused on the lifestyles of working women between the ageof 18 and 35, and the quota sampling method was employed across theregions to facilitate a more meaningful evaluation of the similaritiesand differences between the groups. Therefore, it is difficult to general-ize the results to a larger population. Moreover, the sample of womenin China was chosen from Guangzhou, which is heavily influenced byHong Kong culture. Consumers in Guangzhou may, therefore, behavedifferently from those in Shanghai and Beijing. A cross-sectional com-parison of female consumers in the three cities could be conducted infuture research.

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306 TAI AND TAM

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APPENDIX 1:

Female Average PerEconomically No. in a Urban GDP Capita

Region Population Female Active Household Population (US$) GDP (US$)

Hong Kong 1.6M 48.9% 36.7% 3.61 93.1% 82.7B 15180*Taiwan 20.6M 48.5% 36.8% 3.83 57.4% 175.7B 6837*China 1.2B 48.5% 43.8% 4.28 26.2% 371.2B 2656*

*Adjusted for purchasing power in 1989.Source: Asian Advertising, Marketing and Media Handbook 1994, Euromonitor PLC, 1994

Wells, W. D. (1974). Lifestyle and Psychographics. Chicago: American Market-ing Association.

Wells, W. D. (1975). Psychographics: A Critical Review. Journal of MarketingResearch, 12(5), 196–213.

Wells, W. D. (1985). Attitudes and behaviour: Lessons from the Needhamlifestyle study. Journal of Advertising Research, 25(1), 41–44.

Wells, W., & Tigert, D. (1971). Activities, interests and opinions. Journal of Ad-vertising Research, 11(4), 27–35.

This research was funded by a Central Research Grant from the Hong KongPolytechnic University.

Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to: Susan Tai, Depart-ment of Business Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hum Hom,Kowloon, Hong Kong.

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