Abstract: Using the data from 2010 China Family Panel Studies, this study examined the determinants of married women’s housework time in China. Their time spent on paid work and their absolute earnings were found to be negatively associated with their time spent on domestic chores. This study also specifically examined the impact of women’s relative income on their time for housework. The literature in this regard indicated that, when women outearned their husbands, they tended not to reduce their housework time as their relative earnings increased, a phenomenon known as “gender display.” In other words, the wife’s bargaining power for housework with her relative income was constrained by the gender ideology.
This study found that there were urbanrural and regional differences in the effect of the wife’s relative income on her housework time. The results indicated that increased relative income could help urban married women continuously reduce their housework time. However, for rural married women, the effect of relative income on reducing housework time is limited by their transitional gender ideology, and the “gender display” phenomenon existed.
Linking the survey data to the prefecturelevel indicator of modernization, this study found that, in the rural areas, the effect of relative income on housework time varied with the level of modernization. Specially, the bargaining power of wife’s relative income in housework time was stronger when the rural areas were more modernized. In contrast, the bargaining power was more limited in rural areas with lower modernization level, and“gender display” was more likely to exist. 

Key words: housework, determinants, gender ideology, modernization