Abstract:

Against the backdrop of China's social transformation, filial consumption by adult children driven by filial piety has emerged as a social phenomenon possessing both economic value and cultural significance. Clarifying the impact of resource scarcity among adult children on their filial consumption behaviour, while revealing the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this phenomenon, constitutes a crucial research topic for understanding intergenerational family interactions within the dual context of evolving traditional filial piety and accelerated social mobility. Although filial consumption by adult children is now widespread, systematic research on this behaviour within the Chinese context remains scarce in marketing studies. This research adopts a resource scarcity perspective, employing three studies to systematically investigate how time scarcity and monetary scarcity influence adult children's filial consumption. Study 1 examines the differing filial orientations and their formation processes under conditions of time scarcity and monetary scarcity. Building upon Study 1, Study 2 examines the process and boundary conditions through which time-extended filial orientation influences filial consumption decisions when adult children experience time scarcity. Study 3 explores the process and boundary conditions through which money-saving filial orientation influences filial consumption decisions when adult children experience money scarcity. The findings advance research on filial consumption behaviour among adult children within China's filial piety culture and offer significant practical implications for formulating corporate marketing strategies in the silver economy.

This study's innovations are manifested in four aspects: Firstly, it represents a significant theoretical advancement in filial consumption research within the field of marketing. Existing literature on adult children's consumption for parents primarily appears in marketing and tourism studies, with fragmented themes largely due to the absence of an overarching conceptual framework. In fact, these studies all revolve around consumption activities undertaken by adult children to express filial piety towards their parents. This paper collectively terms these studies as ‘filial piety consumption research’. Second, this paper offers a clear theoretical advancement to the consumer resource scarcity literature within the marketing field. Existing literature has concentrated on how resource scarcity influences consumers' decisions and preferences regarding themselves. To date, no research has explored how consumers make consumption decisions for others when facing time and money constraints. This paper is the first to examine how time scarcity and money scarcity affect the decision preferences and underlying mechanisms of filial consumption among adult child consumers. Thirdly, this paper makes a significant theoretical advancement in the field of marketing by conducting research on consumer decision-making and preferences within the Chinese cultural context. Building upon the New Filial Piety Theory and introducing time and money scarcity as key variables, this study aims to delve into the filial consumption behaviour of Chinese adult children. This perspective not only deepens our understanding of intergenerational support behaviour within the Chinese cultural context but also provides culturally adaptive theoretical supplements and practical insights for marketing research in the field of consumer decision-making and preferences. Fourth, this paper offers significant theoretical advancement to filial piety research within the fields of psychology and sociology. By examining filial consumption decision preferences among adult children, this study supplements and advances psychological research on filial conduct at the behavioural outcome level. Furthermore, its exploration of specific outcomes in the process of honouring parents through consumption when adult children experience time and money scarcity, viewed through a resource scarcity lens, contributes to sociological discussions on the quality of elderly care in China's ageing society at the household micro-level. This provides new empirical perspectives and theoretical extensions to the existing literature in this field..

Key words: Scarce resources, filial piety spending, scarce time, scarce money