Who gets the toys? Do the best little girls and boys get the most toys on Christmas Day? Only if they're rich - demographic aspects of Christmas toy buying

American Demographics, Dec, 1997 by Brad Edmondson, Berna Miller

Do the best little girls and boys get the most toys on Christmas Day? Only if they're rich.

Children are the stars of the holidays. And as the U.S. population grows older, children are surrounded by an increasing number of adults who could buy them toys. It's a demographic version of supply and demand, and it is revealed in the huge mounds of gifts stacked around a middle-class child's Christmas tree.

This map shows that the mounds of Christmas toys may be highest in affluent places that have lots of adult toy buyers and relatively few kids. In the average U.S. county, residents will spend $365 per child on toys, games, hobbies, tricycles, and battery-powered riders this year, according to National Decision Systems, and they are projected to spend $470 in 2002. But people in (1) Arlington County, VA are projected to spend almost $900 per child this year, and 34 percent more than that in 2002. One reason is affluence. Arlington's median household income is $62,000 this year, compared with a national median of $38,000. Another is the scarcity of children. About 16 percent of Arlington residents are aged 0 to 17, compared with 26 percent nationally.

Of course, not all of the toys bought in local stores go to local children. Toy spending per child is $702 in (2) Sarasota County, FL, where the median household income is $38,000 and only 16 percent are kids. Sarasota is a county of grandparents: its median age is approaching 50, while the national median is just under 35. And grandparents buy a lot of toys. The average American's spending on toys peaks in early adulthood, but it remains high until age 65. Households headed by someone aged 25 to 34 spend 47 percent more than the national average on toys, games, hobbies, and tricycles, according to the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Householders aged 35 to 44 spend 28 percent more than average. Half of Americans aged 45 to 59 are grandparents, according to Roper Starch Worldwide, and toy spending by householders aged 45 to 54 remains 8 percent above average. Even among householders aged 55 to 64, average spending on toys is just 6 percent below the national mark.

Child-free couples also like to play. Toy spending per child is $627 in (3) San Francisco County, CA, where the median household income is $43,000 and just 17 percent of residents are kids. But if there are no grandchildren, it's likely that child-free couples spend most of their toy budget on themselves. Spending on "collectible plush" toys--in other words, teddy bears for adults--is projected to reach $620 million by 2000, according to Unity Marketing of Reinholds, Pennsylvania. Even more may be spent on dolls kids rarely see. Adult collectors of fashion and baby dolls are likely to be married, middle-aged women with no children living at home. Half of them spend $250 to $1,000 a year on their hobby, according to Unity Marketing, and one-third spend $1,000 or more.

Affluent consumers dominate the toy market. Households in the top one-fifth of the income distribution spend 86 percent more than the national average on toys; those in the lowest one-fifth spend 67 percent less than average. As a result, counties with the lowest per-child spending on toys tend to be poor and have a lot of children. Most of (4) Apache County, AZ is taken up by Indian reservations. Its median household income is just $16,000, 42 percent of residents are children, and spending on toys per child is $165. In (5) McAllen, TX (Hidalgo County), 92 percent are Hispanic, 36 percent are children, the median household income is $21,000, and per-child toy spending is $195.

When kids get together, adults encourage them to play with each other's toys. This may be why households in counties that have a lot of kids spend less on toys per child, even if their incomes are healthy. In (6) Provo-Orem, UT (Utah County), median income is close to the national mark ($34,000), but per-child toy spending is a lot lower ($212). One reason is that a high proportion (38 percent) of county residents are children. Another could be that in this Mormon town, Christmas is more about religion and less about toys.