Files
Abstract
The work-from-home (WFH) policies prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic created a “natural experiment” to examine the household division of labor. This study focuses on China, a unique context of post-socialist transition, to investigate the effects of WFH on the gendered division of labor and to explore the deeper structural and ideological mechanisms that shape these dynamics. First, utilizing Propensity Score Matching with Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) on 2018-2022 panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), the analysis finds that the mandatory WFH policy had no statistically significant causal impact on the weekly housework hours of either spouse. This points to the resilience of pre-existing domestic arrangements against external shocks and shifts the analytical focus toward more durable, structural factors. A subsequent Structural Equation Model (SEM), based on 2020 CFPS data, delves into these internal household dynamics. The findings reveal a crucial distinction between housework and childcare. A wife’s latent bargaining power—constructed from her economic, human, and structural capital—is effective in reducing routine housework for both herself and her husband. However, this power is largely inert in the domain of childcare, which appears to be a non-negotiable and highly gendered maternal responsibility. Qualitative findings from interviews with urban employed mothers enrich these statistical patterns, revealing how structural resources, such as property ownership and hukou (household registration) status, shape intra-household power. These factors, combined with gender ideologies and support systems, explain the distinct logics governing the negotiable nature of housework versus the non-transferable responsibility of childcare. In sum, this study offers a multi-layered, contextualized framework for understanding gender inequality in contemporary urban China. It demonstrates that merely altering the work context is insufficient to reconfigure deep-seated domestic arrangements, which are upheld by the interplay between structural power, ideology, and the distinct logics governing different domains of domestic labor.