Gender in Families: A Comparison of the Gendered Division of Child Care in Rural and Urban China

Background Understanding the regional differences in child care is critical as the gendered division of child care in the family remains unequal between husbands and wives in China. Objective The study aims to assess how child care time is divided differently between husband and wife within the families in urban and rural sectors, and how these divisions are associated with factors such as one’s own or spouse’s employment status, educational achievement, and earnings. Method We analyzed data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (2004, 2006, 2009, and 2011), using the relative resources theory, “doing gender” perceptive, as well as the gender attitudes model to explain gender differentials in child care among urban and rural families. Results The gender difference in child care continues to persist but with a variation between urban and rural sectors. In addition to the wife’s own employment status, the husband’s employment status as well as income has played important roles in influencing the child care division inside the household. Conclusions The relative resources theory explains the pattern of the gendered division of child care in rural sectors but cannot account for the patterns in urban sectors. Instead, patterns in urban women’s child care time were more consistent with a “doing gender” perspective and urban men’s child care time were consistent with an egalitarian gender attitudes model.