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Differences in Food Preparation by Race and Ethnicity: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey

  • Published:
The Review of Black Political Economy

Abstract

This paper examines factors that influence individuals’ time use decisions regarding food preparation. Using American Time Use Survey data, Tobit estimates confirm that time spent on food preparation differs by race, ethnicity and socio-economic status. In general, hours worked, age, and education are negatively associated with time spent preparing food-cooked-at-home, while family care and leisure time are positively associated with it. Time spent purchasing prepared-food, on the other hand, has a positive relation to hours worked, family care, leisure time, education, and income, although its effects significantly differ by race and ethnicity. Estimates further show a positive relationship between time spent preparing food-cooked-at-home and family size, supporting the Barten theory of scale economies in home production.

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Notes

  1. In most studies, food production includes food preparation, house cleaning, family care, shopping, and household management.

  2. This simplification would save algebra, but not alter our main results.

  3. The Lagrangian function provides the following Lagrangian multipliers: λ 1 = 1/w and λ 2 = 1.

  4. Time use categories include personal care (01), household activities (02), caring for and helping household and non-household members (03, 04), working and work-related activities (05), education (06), consumer purchase (07), professional and personal care services (08), household services (09), government services and civic obligations (10), eating and drinking (11), socializing, relaxing and leisure (12), sports, exercise, and recreation (13), religious and spiritual activities (14), volunteer activities (15), telephone calls (16), and traveling (18).

  5. In the ATUS-CPS file, 3,482 respondents (out of a total 13,038 respondents) were interviewed in the 2004 calendar year.

  6. The weighted average time spent on each activity is calculated using the average-hours-per-day formula to ensure that: (1) each group is correctly represented in the population; (2) each day of the week is correctly represented for the sample month; and (3) groups and days of the week are correctly represented for the sample month.

  7. Detailed description is available at American Time Use Survey Activity Lexicon 2005 (BLS 2006).

  8. Detailed description is available at American Time Use Survey Activity Lexicon 2005 (BLS 2006).

  9. 4,120 and 9,061 out of 10,417 respondents spent zero minute on preparing food at home and purchasing prepared food, respectively.

  10. The Tobit model is one of estimation methods in the studies that use a time use dataset (Mancino and Newman 2007; Floro and Miles 2003; Bianchi and Robinson 1997).

  11. The analyses of all respondents are omitted because the estimation results for all respondents and Whites are quite similar.

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Acknowledgment

Any errors are the sole responsibility of the author. I thank anonymous referees for their comments on earlier versions and Hieu Duc Nguyen and Chu-Ping Lo for invaluable suggestions in developing the theory. I also thank Mark Kolakowski for his editorial assistance.

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  1. Department of Economics, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, 08028, USA

    Sanae Tashiro

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Tashiro, S. Differences in Food Preparation by Race and Ethnicity: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey. Rev Black Polit Econ 36, 161–180 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-009-9045-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-009-9045-3

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