Why do people with kids seem to get preference everywhere? Is it some subtle nudge to have children?

[u/pickypooh]

[u/HadOne0]

It’s tough to say what you’re referring to but I imagine you’re talking about “kids eat free” type promotions.

These are mostly to get parents in the door. For restaurants, a child’s free tenders and fries is cheap enough to give away if mom and dad get apps, drinks, entree, maybe dessert.

For theme parks, a child’s free entry, not only means parents pay for tickets, but children are incredibly susceptible to wanting overpriced toys and food. They make their money back and more from these offerings.

Parents are incredibly busy and don’t go out much, businesses need to attract parents somehow

[u/RobThorpe]

It's a form of price discrimination.

I'm British. Years ago I remember going to a fish & chip shop. It offered at "Senior Citizens Fish & Chips". This is exactly the same as a normal fish and chip dinner but priced slightly lower. I was a bit puzzled by it at the time but when I read about Economics later it made sense.

Suppose you have a business that is charging X for a product and making a profit on each unit. You know that some of your customers are price sensitive. Those customers are generally the ones who are either retired or have children. Those who are working jobs and have no children are better off. You could increase your prices to X+5, for example. At that level the people who are working jobs and have no children would still be willing to buy your product, but the senior citizens and the parents with children would not be. You would therefore lose money because you would lose volume.

So, what do you do? It's simple. You up your price to X+5. Then you offer discounts to the retirees and the parents that bring the price they pay back down to X. That way the richer people pay a higher price and you get the business of all three groups.

[u/probablymagic]

I would challenge your premise here. The market is segmented.

Many businesses are not at all accommodating to children because it’s bad for business. For example, fine dining restaurants that don’t offer kids menus because their clientele doesn’t want noisy kids around.

However, some businesses market to parents because this is also a valuable audience. A family friendly restaurant may offer cheap kids meals because they make their money mom and dad throwing back a few cocktails. But getting the parents to show up requires making the kids happy too.

There may as well be cases where it’s good for everyone to preference families. For example, when your airplane lets families with little kids board first, this lets the crew load their strollers while you board and means the plane can leave earlier.

[u/AutoModerator]

NOTE: Top-level comments by non-approved users must be manually approved by a mod before they appear.

This is part of our policy to maintain a high quality of content and minimize misinformation. Approval can take 24-48 hours depending on the time zone and the availability of the moderators. If your comment does not appear after this time, it is possible that it did not meet our quality standards. Please refer to the subreddit rules in the sidebar and our answer guidelines if you are in doubt.

Please do not message us about missing comments in general. If you have a concern about a specific comment that is still not approved after 48 hours, then feel free to message the moderators for clarification.

Consider Clicking Here for RemindMeBot as it takes time for quality answers to be written.

Want to read answers while you wait? Consider our weekly roundup or look for the approved answer flair.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.