Husbands’ Housework Involvement and the Transition to a Second Birth in China

• In Event: Family Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Caregiving and Support Exchanges Across the Life Course

Abstract

Previous studies about gender equity and childbirth mainly focused on the promoting effects of husband’s participation in housework on childbearing, but ignored the husband’s work-family burden and couples’ multiple children preference. Using discrete-time event history analyses, this paper examines the linkage of husbands’ relative housework share and husbands’ housework time on second-child transition, and how the relationships vary by husbands’ wage work time and couples’ child preference. Findings reveal promoting effects of husbands’ relative housework share on second-child transition, and an inverted U-shaped relationship between husbands’ housework time and second-child transition. The fertility-dampening effects of husbands’ housework time are more pronounced among husbands with heavy workloads, and among couples in which husbands want only one child while wives want multiple children. The findings suggest that the relationship between husband housework and fertility increment needs to be further discussed by considering critical factor such as husband’s work-life balance as well as sociocultural context. We contribute to the literature by revealing the often-overlooked flip side of the gender equity theories.

Authors

• Longxing Zhu, Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Yuying Tong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong