Spending behaviour: Why women enjoy shopping but most men don't

There is no evidence to suggest that women shop more than men. It’s only that females enjoy shopping more than males do. In 2013, a study of 2,000 shoppers in the UK found that men got bored of shopping within 26 minutes, while women did not show any signs of fatigue for a good two hours. Imagine the plight of male shoppers accompanying their partners at shopping malls. The UK study found that one out of two shopping trips with partners ended in arguments. A distraught Chinese man jumped to his death at a Beijing mall in 2013 because, even after a five-hour marathon shopping spree, his girlfriend wanted to check out another garment showroom.

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To ensure that men don’t discourage their partners from splurging, some malls have set up day care centres for grown up men. They can relax and watch TV with snacks and drinks while their women empty their wallets and swipe plastic undisturbed. A spa in Gurgaon serves sandwiches and coffee if you go there during lunchtime.



Why do the genders have such different responses to an essential activity of daily life? One theory says that hundreds of thousands of years of conditioning makes men and women behave like this. When our ancestors lived in caves, the males went out to hunt animals while females gathered food (fruits, veggies, berries) from the forests. For the male hunters, it was necessary to make the kill quickly and get back to the safety of the settlement as fast as they could. That’s how some men shop—enter the store, choose a product, make the payment and get out fast.

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But female gatherers were not in such a tearing hurry. For them, foraging for food was also a social event where they bonded with other females of the tribe, inspecting every bush and tree with care and choosing the best quality of food available.

That’s how a lot of women still shop—comparing products, looking at alternatives and exchanging notes with friends and colleagues.

This hunter-gatherer theory gains further credence from the research finding that men like to shop alone while women prefer to go out with other women. The UK study found that 80% of men prefer to shop alone. Primitive hunters went out in groups too, but hunting was rarely a social event. The hunting party had to keep quiet, lest their talk alerted the prey. Women gatherers, of course, had no such restrictions as they foraged for food and exchanged primeval gossip.

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