Economic Changes and the Household Division of Labor in China

Feinian Chen, Texas A&M University

Highlighting one aspect of the economic transition in China, i.e. industrialization, this paper focuses on how a specific type of employment change, one from an agricultural to a non-agricultural job can change housework arrangements between husband and wife. Using a longitudinal dataset, China Health and Nutrition Survey, I employed fixed effect models to study how a job change can affect husbands, wives, and the difference between their weekly housework hours. The findings suggested that the changing from an agricultural to a non-agricultural job of either the husband or wife affected the household division of labor. With such a job change, the husband cut back his housework hours, which further increased the difference in housework hours between the couple. If the wife changed her job, the reduction in her housework hours was twice as much. The gender effect is expected because of their different level of housework involvement to begin with.