17/12/2007
The Ghost of Christmas Presents: Brits today and the spirit of gift-giving
Recently produced research results from the Future Foundation have uncovered new insights into what drives gift-giving behaviour in the UK now - especially at Christmas time.
We now know: -
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The average British adult now gives Christmas gifts to a total of 12 people.
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Around 35% of us give at least one present to more than 11 people and around 10% give at least one to over 21 people.
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Women are more devoted buyers of Christmas presents; they bestow their generosity on an average of 14 people (cf men giving to only 10).
In spite of all this Christmas spirit, around 80% of British consumers now agree that “the amount of presents people buy at Christmas is excessive”. This can rise to virtually 90% among adults in the later family formation stage.
Even around 60% of under-24s - highly likely to be the greatest beneficiaries of the present-giving impulse - agree that these days just too much stuff is being put in the Christmas wrapping.
But nothing seems to be cauterising that impulse:
Around three-quarters of us confirm that they derive more pleasure from giving presents than they ever do from receiving them.
In addition, around 40% of Brits say that they buy more gifts than they used to do.
And the drive to give pure pleasure to others does seem to expel other concerns:
Less than 5% of us say that when we last bought a gift its ethical content or environmental-friendliness represented an important factor in choice-making.
Whereas there is some evidence that those educated to degree level are more likely to take eco-ethical factors into account, even amongst this grouping the sensitivity is not that strong.
Clearly in millions of individual instances, gift-selecting and gift-giving remains essentially an exercise in indulgence, one in which the pursuit of a pleasurable outcome meets less interference from other concerns and goals.
Commenting on the results, Christophe Jouan, Managing Director of the Future Foundation, said:
“Clearly, the psychological and cultural basis for the purchase-explosion that is synonymous with Christmas in the UK is still very much intact.
Yes, there are concerns that we might all be buying too much (whatever that might mean), but this does not in itself seem to be keeping us out of the jingle-belled malls.
Last year, during our Christmas surveys, we noticed that around a quarter of people were growing resistant to buying certain types of present for certain types of people (eg sweets for kids, alcohol for adults…). But plainly any such instincts are not developing to the point where the desire to give some form of pleasure to those close to us at Christmas time has been weakened. If we are avoiding certain types of gift, we are simply replacing them with others.
The forecasting community has long since debated whether eventually the annual Christmas shopping surge - extravagant and excessive, as it is, in some people’s eyes - would naturally be beaten back as all manner of ecological and health-related concerns took hold.
But this does not seem to be happening. At least, not yet”.