Parental Labor in Chinese Families: Division by Functions and Subjects

The study of the division of parental labor within Chinese families has a certain significance in the context of modern reality, characterized by the continuing low birth rate. In relevant works, the care and upbringing of children is most often taken into account by the household as a whole and is rarely considered as a separate specialized work. The concept of parental labor in the research of Russian scientists is proposed as a new approach and tool for researching and mitigating demographic problems, stimulating fertility. We conducted a questionnaire survey of more than 700 Chinese parents with children under the age of 15 in 2024. We studied the subjects of the intra-family division of parental labor, the functions and content that they assume in this process. The paper showed that the main subject of parental labor is women, who attract grandparents to help with the care and upbringing of children. Mothers account for more than or almost half of the routine, educational, and therapeutic-preventive functions. We also found that the difference in income within married couples affects the amount of time women spend on child care: mothers who earn less than their fathers spend more time caring for children compared to mothers who have higher incomes than their spouses, but no such difference was found for fathers. The research results can be used to further study and identify differences in the level of satisfaction with the division of labor in the family, and also justify the development of family policy measures that promote a rational division of labor and increase satisfaction with this division among various subjects of this type of work.