Maternal work and child care in China: a multi-method analysis

摘要

The potential for strain from the dual demands of work and child care is particularly acute for Chinese women. Women's labor force participation rates in China are among the highest in the world (United Nations 2000). Such high labor force participation is in part a legacy of socialist ideologies that promoted women's employment as a means to their liberation; for decades the Chinese government promoted gender equality by encouraging women to join the labor force. By contrast, less campaigning wasclone for gender equality in the family sphere (Harrell 2000; Jacka 1997). In fact, at the same time women were exhorted to join the ranks of workers, state-sponsored messages assigned women responsibility for promoting "spiritual civilization" through their nurturance of children and family (e.g., Robinson 1985). Today, although popular sentiment about the appropriate gender-based division of labor is changing, the majority of Chinese women, including mothers of young children, continue to work. In urban China approximately 90 percent of women aged 25-44 years are in the labor force, and estimates run even higher in rural areas (Bauer et al. 1992). Women also remain responsible for most domestic work, including child care (Honig and Hershatter 1988; Jacka 1997). A persistent decline in fertility in the past three decades means a decrease in women's overall childrearing responsibility; nonetheless, almost every woman participates in child care during her lifetime. Moreover, as children in China becomeever more precious, demands associated with child care grow. The contours of working and nurturing continue to evolve in reform-era China, but the dual demands on Chinese women's lives persist.