Women’s Post-Marital Employment in China: Motherhood in an Era of Economic Reform

• In Event: 501 - Section on Asia and Asian America Paper Session. Social Inequalities: Emerging Research on Asia and Asian America

Abstract

This paper discusses motherhood effect on Chinese women’s participation in the labor market and employment in informal sectors from 1991 to 2011. It focuses on how institutional changes on the macro-level affect individual level family to work relationship. It uses data from eight waves of China Health and Nutrition Survey with generalized version of Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort models, also known as cross-classified mixed effect logistic models. The results from mixed effects logit analysis suggest that motherhood has a negative effect on Chinese women’s labor force participation conditional on children’s age. Women with pre-school aged children are the group affected most severely by family obligations related to childrearing and caring. In addition, there is an increasing significant negative period effect on women’s labor force participation. Women working in later period of market reform face a more intense working environment with fewer family friendly policies. It is increasingly more difficult for women to take care of their young children while remaining in the labor force in later period of market reform when the country becomes more and more market-oriented. For those who stay in the labor force, they were squeezed into informal sectors which would only result in more intense family to work conflict.

Author

• Bin Lian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign