Abstract:
Abstract—Jaffna, Sri Lanka is experiencing major shifts in
her socio-cultural structure during the last ten years.
Especially after post war, consumer behavior and patterns has
rapidly changed in Jaffna. Thus, a society which has been
traditionally known as “collective” in nature is showing
increased evidence of individualism. With increased
penetration of electronic media, affordable home
entertainment systems, cinema, and the internet, consumers
are opening up to the great outside world. The developed
worlds are constantly creating reality for the consumers. This
is not different in case of Jaffna. Having finished civil war,
people in Jaffna are more enthusiastic to imitate others
because of seeking social status and they Strive to show the
impression that they are better off than before. Not only that
they increase his chance of making relationship with high
ability and middle and upper class people. The main objectives
of the present study were to find out the significant
determinants for conspicuous consumption and size of that
between male and female and to what extend poor tend to
display their conspicuous consumption in a society. For this
study, OLS method and descriptive statistics have been used
with the help of statistical software for social science (SPSS).
The results bring the light the fact that income is main
determinant of the amount to be allocated but sex and age have
insignificant impact on the amount to be allocated for social
status. Further, this finding clearly shows the fact that people
in Jaffna are making significant allocation of their income to
maintain social status than satisfaction and at the same time,
poor people in Jaffna are also enthusiastic to have conspicuous
consumption for expressing their position that they are better
off than before. This study will be giving different insight to
researchers and policy makers because the literature for
conspicuous consumption pays little attention on poor and low
middle income people yet, especially in Sri Lanka. Further, this
study will help to marketing managers or firms in their
decision about sales
