Zusammenfassung
Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt, daß es auch in der BRD etliche empirische Indizien gibt, welche für die aus den USA bakannte These «die Armen zahlen mehr» sprechen. Nach einer kurzen Erläuterung dieser These sowie der sie stützenden Einzelhypothesen und der Erörterung der dafür sprechenden empirischen Indizien in der BRD, wird schließlich die Frage aufgeworfen, ob die Verbraucherpolitik in der BRD nicht stärker auf die besonderen Probleme sozial schwacher Konsumenten ausgerichtet werden soll, um damit zugleich in Übereinstimmung mit sozialpolitischen Zielsetzungen deren Lebenslage zu verbessern.
Abstract
The aim of this article is to focus the attention of consumer research and consumer policy in West Germany on the special disadvantages of low-income consumers. These disadvantages are well known in U. S. consumer and poverty research since the pioneering study in this field by Caplovitz (The Poor Pay More) but seem to be still largely ignored in West Germany.
Surveying the available empirical knowledge on income differences and consumer behaviour in West Germany, four main factors can be identified which cause low-income consumers to pay more for the same goods (T1), or to get goods of lower quality, i.e., less value for the same amount of money (T2), than better-off middle-class consumers do.
Firstly, in West Germany as in other western countries, low-income consumers, especially low-educated consumers, seem to be less informed than better educated middle-class consumers about market conditions, shopping opportunities, prices, and quality of goods. So they may have a greater risk of uneconomical buying. Remarkably, low-income consumers do not utilize the consumer's advice bureau or consumer information offered by the “Stiftung Warentest” to the extent that middle-class consumers do.
Secondly, low-income consumers more frequently than middle-class consumers shop for food and daily necessities in small stores in their neighbourhood, more often buying in small quantities. Shopping in this way, goods are more expensive than by buying larger quantities in supermarkets or discount-stores. Interviews with low-income consumers in Munich (Studiengruppe für Sozialforschung, 1974) showed that this particular shopping behaviour is not mainly due to the lack of market information or to a preference by low-income consumers for personal contacts at shopping, as is sometimes maintained, but rather stems from budget restrictions which prevent large-scale buying, and from transportation problems facing low-income consumers without an automobile, especially in urban low-income areas and in rural settlements without discount-stores or the like.
Thirdly, there is some evidence to suggest that low-income consumers in West Germany more frequently buy on instalment credit, which is supposed to be more costly than cash-payments or banking credits preferred by middle-class consumers.
Fourthly, there is some empirical evidence in West Germany that low-income consumers, mostly low-educated, in contrast to middle-class consumers largely lack consumer know-how and shopping sophistication. So it can be assumed that low-income consumers are more frequently caught in unplanned and unfavourable purchases by persuasion of salesmen or pedlars. Presumably they also, more often than middle-class consumers, abstarin from taking action when dissatisfied. It is worth nothing, though, that the latest empirical findings in West Germany do not support the widespread view that low-income consumers do less household planning and budgeting and therefore more frequently do uneconomical shopping than middle-class consumers. Indeed, in the incidence of household planning in the country there seems to be no significant differences by income level. As strict household planning in West Germany is generally rare, in this respect one may only presume that many poor consumers pay more than would be necessary by careful income spending (T3).
Referring to these findings, the recommendation is made that public consumer policy in the Federal Republic of Germany to an increasing extent should face up to the disadvantages of low-income consumers and attempt to contribute to the reduction of real-income poverty. As scientific knowledge on this issue is still very sparse in West Germany, the article closes with a demand for further research in the field.
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Additional information
Hermann Scherl ist wissenschaftlicher Assistent am Institut für Staats-und Versicherungswissenschaft der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (D — 8520 Erlangen, Kochstraße 4).
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Scherl, H. Die Armen zahlen mehr — ein vernachlässigtes Problem der Verbraucherpolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland?. J Consum Policy 2, 110–123 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00380349
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00380349