Investigating Factors Influencing Acceptance of Pink Tax on Personal Care Products Among Chinese Urban Women

Abstract: The pink tax is an unfair economic practice where products and services of the same quality are charged at different prices toward female and male consumers. This paper investigated what factors will contribute to young Chinese female consumers acceptance and attitudes toward the practice of the pink tax. It adopted quantitative methods and collected data from 500 questionnaires distributed across five major cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Qingdao. This study found that socio-demographic factors such as marital status, educational attainment, disposable income, family structure, and Hukou and home ownership status would influence consumers. Consumers pursuit of product packaging, product attributes, high-end shopping locations, as well as some emotional burdens further lead to higher acceptance of the pink tax. This paper addresses the gap of socio-demographic factors associated with pink tax and China since most previous researches investigated pink tax in developed country from an economic perspective.