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Question Numbers: 71-79
Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the following question.
Restaurants’ growth accelerated in the 20th century. American employment in food service quadrupled as a share of the workforce over this period. The Michelin Guide was first published in 1900; the stars came 26 years later. And yet the continued rise of the restaurant up until the pandemic nonetheless presents an economic puzzle. Cooking at home was becoming even easier. Average house sizes grew. Appliances such as the food processor and the dishwasher reduced preparation and clean-up times. Dining out became relatively more expensive:
And yet three economic changes ensured that demand for restaurants grew despite rising prices. The first is immigration. In the 50 years after the second world war the net flow of migrants into rich countries, relative to population, more than quadrupled. Starting a restaurant is a good career move for new arrivals; it neither requires formal qualifications nor, at least for chefs, fluency in the local language. Migrants tend to improve the quality of an area’s restaurants. The second factor was the changing microeconomics of the family. The size of the family increased with the rising microeconomics. As a new paper by Rachel Griffith of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think-tank, and colleagues, shows, households’ choices about whether to make their own food or to buy it premade are shaped not only by the upfront cost of those things. They also depend on what economists call “shadow costs”. The true cost of an at-home meal involves not just the outlay for the ingredients, but the time spent on shopping and preparation. In an era of low female labor-force participation, shadow costs were low. A stay-at-home mother who cooked instead of eating out would have less leisure time. But as more women entered the workforce during the 20th century this equation changed, raising the shadow cost of cooking. Now a working woman who cooked dinner would be sacrificing time that might _________ used to earn money. And so eating out made increasing economic sense, even as it became more expensive. The third factor was changing working patterns. Historically poor people have tended to work longer hours than rich ones. But in the latter half of the 20th century, the opposite became true. The rise of knowledge-intensive jobs, and globalization, made rich people’s work more financially rewarding—and enjoyable. Toiling into the night became a sign of status. The upshot was that the people with the most money to spend on dining out increasingly needed it most since they had the least free time. In Britain, the richest tenth of households devote a much bigger chunk of their overall spending to dining and drinking out than the poorest tenth, and the gap has grown in recent years.
What does the history of the restaurant say about its future? People have relished their reopening. In recent weeks global restaurant reservations have been near their pre-pandemic levels. The long-term future of the restaurant is less clear. The pandemic has led to many people buying more takeout than before, while others have a newfound love of cooking. Restaurants have little choice but to continue to adapt.
Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the following question.
Restaurants’ growth accelerated in the 20th century. American employment in food service quadrupled as a share of the workforce over this period. The Michelin Guide was first published in 1900; the stars came 26 years later. And yet the continued rise of the restaurant up until the pandemic nonetheless presents an economic puzzle. Cooking at home was becoming even easier. Average house sizes grew. Appliances such as the food processor and the dishwasher reduced preparation and clean-up times. Dining out became relatively more expensive:
And yet three economic changes ensured that demand for restaurants grew despite rising prices. The first is immigration. In the 50 years after the second world war the net flow of migrants into rich countries, relative to population, more than quadrupled. Starting a restaurant is a good career move for new arrivals; it neither requires formal qualifications nor, at least for chefs, fluency in the local language. Migrants tend to improve the quality of an area’s restaurants. The second factor was the changing microeconomics of the family. The size of the family increased with the rising microeconomics. As a new paper by Rachel Griffith of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think-tank, and colleagues, shows, households’ choices about whether to make their own food or to buy it premade are shaped not only by the upfront cost of those things. They also depend on what economists call “shadow costs”. The true cost of an at-home meal involves not just the outlay for the ingredients, but the time spent on shopping and preparation. In an era of low female labor-force participation, shadow costs were low. A stay-at-home mother who cooked instead of eating out would have less leisure time. But as more women entered the workforce during the 20th century this equation changed, raising the shadow cost of cooking. Now a working woman who cooked dinner would be sacrificing time that might _________ used to earn money. And so eating out made increasing economic sense, even as it became more expensive. The third factor was changing working patterns. Historically poor people have tended to work longer hours than rich ones. But in the latter half of the 20th century, the opposite became true. The rise of knowledge-intensive jobs, and globalization, made rich people’s work more financially rewarding—and enjoyable. Toiling into the night became a sign of status. The upshot was that the people with the most money to spend on dining out increasingly needed it most since they had the least free time. In Britain, the richest tenth of households devote a much bigger chunk of their overall spending to dining and drinking out than the poorest tenth, and the gap has grown in recent years.
What does the history of the restaurant say about its future? People have relished their reopening. In recent weeks global restaurant reservations have been near their pre-pandemic levels. The long-term future of the restaurant is less clear. The pandemic has led to many people buying more takeout than before, while others have a newfound love of cooking. Restaurants have little choice but to continue to adapt.
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