Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2018, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (5): 214-240.

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How Do Earnings Influence Housework Division of Chinese Couples?

SUN Xiaodong   

  1. School of Humanities and Social Science, Institute for Empirical Social Science Research, Xi'an Jiaotong University
  • Online:2018-09-20 Published:2018-09-20
  • Supported by:

    The research was supported by "China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project"(2018M631130) and "the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities" (SK2018017) in Xi'an Jiaotong University.

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Abstract:

What are the factors contributing to the persistence of gender division in domestic housework while labor market has witnessed a rapid decline of gender segregation? Existing literature attributes the phenomenon to the gender gap in personal income. However, opinions vary on mechanism and direction of the influence. Moreover, comparative empirical studies from different countries find that the theoretical interpretation on personal income and housework has to be contextually adaptive, that is, under different social structures and cultural contexts, different rules may exist about the impact of personal income on gender division of housework. We use CGSS 2012 data to analyze the above issues. Findings suggest that decrease of wife's economic dependence reduces her share of housework and the correlation between the two variables is not affected by wife's nor her spouse's absolute income. However, husband's absolute earnings changes the relationship between wife's economic dependency and husband's share of housework from negative linear correlation to inverted U-curve correlation. These findings not only provide a more precise and concrete evidence for understanding the relationship between income and gender division of homework in contemporary Chinese society, but also suggest a connecting mechanism and behavioral strategy that has not been explored in the existing literature. It is suggested that there might be an "indirect compensation" strategy for gender identity within Chinese families. Under this strategy, with no increase of her housework share, the wife affirms the traditional gender identity of breadwinner/homemaker through indirect compensation, leading to the persistence of gender division of housework.

Key words: income, housework, economic exchange, gender deviance neutralization, economic autonomy