The Impact of Women's Education on the Division of Household Labor in Urban China

• In Event: 2266 - Family Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 10. Gender Equality, Women's Education, and Family in China and Taiwan

Abstract

This article examines mechanisms through which Chinese women’s educational attainment influences the division of household labor. I use relative-resource and time-availability models to predict how women’s education relates to individual-, couple-, and family-level characteristics and test the hypotheses with panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2010. Using structural equation modeling, I examine the direct and indirect effects of women’s educational attainment on their weekly hours of housework. The results suggest that women’s weekly hours of housework are predicted directly by characteristics associated with women’s status (i.e., education, income) and indirectly through the processes of family formation (i.e., husband’s education, income, and fertility). My findings suggest that women’s education can influence the division of household labor through the processes of family formation. Chinese women with higher educational attainment are more likely to form a family with a more egalitarian division of household labor through their marriage and fertility strategies.

Author

• Shuyin Liu, University of Massachusetts Amherst