Systematic Overview of Gender in Consumer Research: Foundations and Future Paths

Abstract

This paper aims to systematically summarize the literature available on gender and consumer research to evaluate its foundations and the state of the art of those studies. To do so, a literature review was conducted using the Scopus database and applying bibliometric and content analysis. The database of this study consisted of 1001 articles and reviews, written by 2759 authors and coauthors, and published in 471 journals. The most cited paper is “Poststructuralist Lifestyle Analysis: Conceptualizing the Social Patterning of Consumption In Postmodernity” (Holt, 1997) and the journal that publishes most papers on this topic is Journal of Consumer Marketing. The United States has the biggest number of papers. The content analysis of the most cited papers showed a predominance of quantitative studies. Despite the growing interest in the topic, researchers are still focusing on gender as an independent variable and not as a category os analysis., therefore, it is necessary to understand the complexity and particularities of this phenomenon. Consumer researchers need to focus on gender in a more broad perspective, investigating how marketplaces practices help to create gendered environments that help to perpetuate gender disparities. We discussed further new directions for future research and challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to consumer’s life regarding gender and that need to be addressed in the future.