Impoverished Children and Consumption Adequacy

Children are more likely to be poor than their adult counterparts, and they are also more likely to suffer from poverty’s adverse consequences. While constituting about one-third of the world’s population, they make up half of those persons suffering from multidimensional impoverished conditions such as lack of access to nutritious foods or clean water. The consumer behavior field has little to say about these environments and their impacts on the development and lived experiences of these youths. To partially fill this gap and set the stage for future research, we examine research done to date on poor children chronicled in the consumer behavior literature, followed by a broader look at extant research in this intellectual domain and empirical findings. Together, they set the stage for a new orientation for research that moves the field’s aperture toward vulnerable children, emphasizing consumption adequacy for all youths. Recommendations for marketers are offered that recognize what they have and have not done to serve such youths.