The relationship between Chinese preschoolers’ housework involvement and their prosocial behavior

• In Event: Examining Family Processes across Culturally Diverse Families: A Focus on Family Functioning within Black, Latinx, and Chinese Families

Abstract

Assigning children housework has long been a common phenomenon in many families, yet its meaning has evolved. Due to the need of labor force, children’s involvement in housework was considered instrumental to families’ survival. However, nowadays parents tend to view housework as a way to promote children’s development, such as the learning of survival skills and prosocial behavior (Blair, 1992; Roerig, 2014; White, 2018). However, mixed findings have been reported regarding the relationship between housework involvement and child outcomes. For instance, Grusec(1996) find a positive association between children’s participation in housework and their prosocial behavior, but Goodnow (1988) and Staub (1989) didn’t find that.
In China, previous research showed that Chinese school-aged children spent limited time in doing housework (Liu, 2008; Wu & Yuan, 2002). Because of the heavy emphasis on academic performance in Chinese culture, many Chinese parents may view children’s housework involvement as a waste of time (Guo, 2017). Young children often show interests in housework tasks can be an important socialization arena for young children to acquire important competencies, yet there is little empirical research examining preschoolers’ housework involvement. The current study focused on Chinese preschool-aged children, and we attempted to examine the relationship between children’s housework involvement and their prosocial behavior.
This is an ongoing study taking place in Henan Province, China. A total of 326 families with 5-6 years old children were recruited (50.1% girls; Mean age = 5.4±0.58 years). Parents reported the frequency of their children’ housework participation using the revised “CHORES” questionnaire (Dunn, 2004). It included two subscales: Self-care and Family-care. The Self-care subscale concerns children’s participation in tasks regarding managing their own needs or their own space and belongings (e.g., putting away their toys). The Family-care subscale pertains to the tasks of managing family public space and belongings and taking care of families’ needs (e.g., caring for younger siblings and washing dishes). Parents also reported children’s prosocial behavior using the “Preschool Children’s Prosocial Behavior Scale” (Deng, 2013), which includes multiple aspects of prosocial behaviors (i.e., cooperation, helping behavior, sharing, empathy, and public moral behavior).
Table1 presents correlations among the primary study variables. There were positive correlations between children’s housework involvement and all aspects their prosocial behavior. Therefore, when children were involved in housework more often, they demonstrated higher levels of prosocial behavior. Figure1 examined the relationship between children’s housework participation and their prosocial behavior use linear regression models, with a series of covariates included. The current findings suggest that encouraging young children to engage in housework tasks that are related to caring for the self or other family member may help cultivate children’s prosocial behavior, which has important implications for parent education. In addition, we will further explore Chinese preschoolers’ housework involvement through conducting qualitative interviews with parents.

Authors

• Xinyu Zhou, East China Normal University
  Presenting Author

• Lixin Ren, East China Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Weiman Xu, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Non-Presenting Author