Wife's Employment, Food Expenditures, and Apparent Nutrient Intake: Evidence from Canada

Women's employment has important effects on the share of food in total expenditure, the share of food-away-from-home in the food budget, cost per calorie, and per capita availability of twelve nutrients. Empirical results are presented using Canadian household food expenditure survey data. As expected, wife's employment increases the share of food-away-from-home in the food budget. Wife's full-time employment has a negative effect on apparent nutrient intake, not offset by the higher per capita income of such households. There are policy implications for nutrition education and nutrient content of food-away-from-home.