Uncovering consumption profile heterogeneity and the role of income and education in determining profile membership in the Netherlands

Consumer behaviour significantly contributes to environmental degradation, highlighting the need to understand consumption patterns to inform sustainable policies. Despite growing interest, there is still a lack of nuanced understanding of consumption. First, most studies examined how factors like socioeconomic status (SES) influence isolated consumption behaviours, overlooking the cumulative, cross-domain influence of consumption. Second, while SES is a well-acknowledged and studied predictor of consumption, less is known whether the effects of SES components (income, education) differ and whether they interact. To overcome these gaps, we used microdata from Statistics Netherlands and grouped households based on their fashion, food, transportation, water, and energy expenditures via Latent Profile Analysis. Five subgroups are identified: Low consumers, high consumers, nomadic compensators, local-based foodies, and average consumers. Most importantly, we found that income and education predict the probabilities of the identified profiles differentially. Our findings highlight the importance to be SES-sensitive and to coordinate among consumption domains as robust principles for policy development.