Effect of women’s labor market status on online grocery shopping, the case of Turkey

The rate of Internet purchasing is increasing day by day. One of the reasons of that increase could be individuals’ intention to allocate time effectively in order to maximize their utility function. Within this context, an employed woman would aim to spend less time on household chores such as shopping compared to the ones who are not active in the labor market. When women’s age, education and other demographic characteristics are held constant, being employed for a woman is expected to have a positive effect on the increase of Internet purchases. For this purpose, 2004–2013 Household Information Technologies Use Survey, obtained from Turkish Statistical Institute, has been used to estimate the probability of making online grocery shopping with Heckman’s two step probit methods. According to the findings, being employed has a positive effect on the probability of using Internet and making online grocery shopping. In addition, as education increases, probability of using Internet and probability of making online grocery shopping increases. The probability of using Internet and making online grocery shopping also increases with age but at a decreasing rate. Moreover, while living in urban areas positively affects online grocery shopping, the number of household size has a negative impact.