Well off families with higher skills

Published: Mint dated 15th March 2010

This is the 13th in a 33-part series on distinct consumer segments, based on a categorization of stage of life and occupation, expenditure and savings propensity, family structure and psychographics. This week we look at the C6 segment—middle-aged, married with grown-up children, is a graduate or postgraduate

Indicus Consumer Segment

Indicus Consumer Segment

We take the last C segment this week—C6, where the chief wage earner has a graduate/postgraduate degree or a diploma/certificate after schooling, is a professional, is in his middle years, and is married with grown-up children.With around 1.1 million households, the C6 segment comprises around 1.6% of urban Indian households. Unlike the last four segments, where chief wage earners could be either skilled workers or professionals, this segment restricts the occupational profile to just professionals.As the majority of the chief wage earners in the C6 segment are in the age group of 45-54 years, this, therefore, forms an older version of the C1 segment, which focuses on professionals in their younger years. With higher skills and greater experience, the median household income in the C6 segment is the highest among all C segments. More than a quarter of the households earn more than Rs10 lakh per annum—a well off segment indeed.

C6

Indicus Consumer Segment

These are predominantly nuclear families, as most urban households are now, and 80% have no senior citizens. All households have children, but they are older than those in the earlier segments, and they are either studying or, in some cases, working. Among all the life stages, education takes up the highest share in the home budget now, at a time when children of well-educated parents pursue higher education. Often children take up the same profession as their parents, and these households can afford to spend more money on professional courses in private colleges.There are others who take a different path, but the aspirational levels are already high among well-educated parents, and the children, therefore, take up extra classes to gain admission to courses abroad as well. Grown-up children who are working but unmarried continue to stay with their parents when they work in the same city. In the C6 segment, therefore, nearly 40% of households have two or more earning members.

Indicus Consumer Segment

Yet, spouses by and large don’t work—more than three-fourths are homemakers. This is to some extent a reflection of the lower levels of education of spouses in these older-year segments. Around 48% of spouses have not gone beyond some level of schooling. In fact, among the C segments, C6 households have the highest share—spouses in 3.1% of households are illiterate or have completed only primary schooling. This profile is changing over time, and those in their younger years have more educated spouses. Most still continue to stay at home to look after the children, but that is a different story.

Most of the C6 households have bought the houses they live in, while less than one-third live in rented homes, keeping rent a very low share of their budgets. Services take up the highest—nearly 60%—share of consumption, with expenditure on conveyance being the highest item there.

Indicus Consumer Segment

Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai are the top five urban districts for this professional segment. The leading sector of employment—education, health and social work—is associated with a high level of education, which is what this segment delivers. These cities lead in higher education institutes, in medical facilities, and also as centres for software, defence and auto companies. Public administration comes in second, as a government job has always been a safe and much-targeted sector of employment.

This trend has changed somewhat in the last decade, with private sector jobs offering better potential for growth for professionals. Construction, real estate, renting and related business services form the third most important sector of employment—not a surprise given the high growth in real estate development in these cities.