Whoever said youth was wasted on the young didn’t get invited to too many beach rages.

A recent study by South African student magazine, Student Village and the Department of Marketing and Retail Management at UNISA has shed some light on the consumer habits of South Africa’s 850 000 university, technikon- and college-going students. The skinny? Brands, booze and food, and mostly paid for by mom and dad.

This year, South Africa’s students will spend about R33 billion, and less than 15% of that will be on academic materials or textbooks. Researchers found that, on average, a tertiary student spends R3 268 a month – or about R39 216 every year.

Some of the more interesting trends were:

• On average, students spend R712 each month on food, and about R500 on rent.
• Female students spend 5% more on food and general groceries than their male counterparts.
• Male students spend a staggering 200% more on contraceptives and 180% more on alcohol than female students.
• The desire to own established brands was very important to the students surveyed. Friends, advertising and parents were also influential, the researchers found.
• The biggest source of income for South Africa’s students are their parents – of those surveyed, 77% relied on Mom and Dad for their monthly allowance, while others worked part-time or dipped into bursary funding to pay their way.

Researchers interviewed 1 220 students aged between 18 and 24, using both online questionnaires and conducting in-person interviews at five of the country’s biggest institutions. The research was conducted in February and March this year and in that period, students had already bought more than 330 000 cellphones.

In the same period, 35 000 students had either bought cars or had cars bought for them. Other big expenses were travel and textbooks.

[Source: News 24]