OBSERVING CHANGES IN CANADIAN DEMAND FOR FOOD DIVERSITY OVER TIME

Larissa S. Drescher and Ellen Goddard

No 6357, 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: Research on food diversity is interdisciplinary in nature, and is highly relevant for different research fields. Eating a variety of foods has been linked to the nutritional well-being of the household. From an economic perspective, food diversity can be used to derive important conclusions regarding the economic well-being of a population under study. This paper attempts to fill two main research gaps. The first objective of this paper is to analyze the demand for food diversity in Canada for the first time. This includes observing the extent of food diversity and the identification of respective socio-economic determinants. The second main objective is to compare changes in the cross-sectional demand for food diversity over time using three data sets of the Canadian Food Expenditure Survey (1984, 1996 and 2001). Food diversity is measured twice, with a measure used in nutritional studies and an economic diversity measure to draw conclusions for both research fields. Results show that in all years the demand for diversity (both indices) is positively influenced by income, age, and household size. We observe a significant quadratic influence of income in all models. Over all years, males and singles have a lower demand for food diversity than females and married Canadians. In addition, the region the household lives in is a strong predictor of food diversity. We observe changes in demand for food diversity in Canada. It is shown that the demand for food diversity decreased from 1984 to 1996 and 2001.

Keywords: Demand and Price Analysis; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea08:6357

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.6357

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