Unraveling the Stalled Gender Revolution: An Investigation of Women’s Narratives, Family Structures, and Micro-Level Gender Dynamics in Chinese Households

Gender inequality operates differently across various families in China. For example, previous research suggests that the motherhood penalty is most pronounced in patrilocal families, nil in matrilocal families (where married couples live with the wife’s parents), and moderate in nuclear families (where married couples live with the husband’s parents) (Yu and Xie 2018). However, it remains unclear how family dynamics intersect with gender in shaping individual outcomes in Chinese households. Accordingly, in this dissertation, I provide a systematic examination of this question with a mixed-methods approach. I start by examining how living in extended families reduces women’s total housework burdens (Ta et al. 2019), yet also exacerbates the gender gap (Hu and Mu 2021). Drawing on 38 in-depth interviews with married Chinese women, I find that women’s goal of making life manageable precipitates their choices of extended families, as a viable solution to navigate their work-family conflicts. This goal, however, directs their attention from the gender gap in domestic labor and fosters everyday interactions suppressing women’s intentions to resist the unequal housework division. The second chapter continues the exploration of variation in family dynamics, but is more focused on the effects of this variation on individual outcomes. Based on analyses of six-year nationally representative datasets, I find that it is necessary to make a distinction between patrilocal and matrilocal extended families. This is because the former is associated with people’s increased fertility intentions whereas the latter is related to decreased fertility intentions, as compared to nuclear families. Such an important variation is concealed if researchers combine patrilocal and matrilocal families into one category. Building on knowledge of the first two chapters, the third chapter foregrounds women’s agency to explore how they navigate the gender and family dynamics in Chinese households. Drawing on interviews with 40 married Chinese women, I show that women express an individualist ethos of self-reliance in domestics labor, rejecting the idea that their household responsibility is a result of gendered subordination. They do so by reconstructing gender status differences and reviving meanings of family works at narrative levels. Such narratives allow them to build an alternative, more reconciled story of gender inequality that they are, in fact, unable to challenge. These three chapters, although have different focuses, all contribute to a comprehensive understanding of individuals’ lives at the intersection of gender and family dynamics in a social context where gender inequality remains entrenched. In conclusion, I demonstrate how these three articles advance our knowledge of 1) individuals’ struggles between conflicting or even competing ideologies in everyday life, and 2) the connections between individual outcomes at the micro-level and social factors at the macro level.

在中国，不同家庭中的性别不平等表现形式各异。例如，既往研究表明，母职惩罚（motherhood penalty）在父居制家庭中最为显著，在母居制家庭（已婚夫妇与妻子父母同住）中不存在，而在核心家庭（已婚夫妇与丈夫父母同住）中程度中等（Yu and Xie 2018）。然而，家庭动态（family dynamics）如何与性别交织，进而影响中国家庭中个体的结果，这一点仍不明确。因此，本论文采用混合方法（mixed-methods approach）对这一问题进行了系统考察。首先，我考察了居住在扩展家庭（extended families）中如何减轻女性的总家务负担（Ta et al. 2019），同时又加剧了性别差距（Hu and Mu 2021）。基于对38位已婚中国女性的深度访谈（in-depth interviews），我发现女性为使生活可控的目标促使她们选择扩展家庭，将其作为应对工作-家庭冲突（work-family conflicts）的可行方案。然而，这一目标转移了她们对家务劳动中性别差距的关注，并促成了抑制女性反抗不平等家务分工意图的日常互动。第二章继续探讨家庭动态的差异，但更聚焦于这种差异对个体结果的影响。基于对六年全国代表性数据集（nationally representative datasets）的分析，我发现有必要区分父居制和母居制扩展家庭。这是因为与核心家庭相比，前者与人们生育意愿的提升相关，而后者则与生育意愿的下降相关。若研究者将父居制和母居制家庭归为一类，这种重要差异便会被掩盖。基于前两章的知识，第三章突出女性的能动性（agency），探讨她们如何应对中国家庭中的性别与家庭动态。基于对40位已婚中国女性的访谈，我发现女性在家庭劳动中表达出一种自力更生的个人主义伦理（individualist ethos of self-reliance），拒绝接受其家庭责任是性别从属（gendered subordination）结果的观点。她们通过在叙事层面重构性别地位差异和复兴家庭工作的意义来实现这一点。这些叙事使她们能够构建一个替代的、更调和的性别不平等故事——而事实上，她们无法挑战这种不平等。这三章虽侧重点不同，但均有助于全面理解在性别不平等依然根深蒂固的社会背景下，个体在性别与家庭动态交织中的生活。结论部分，我阐释了这三篇文章如何推进我们对以下两点的认识：1）个体在日常生活中于冲突甚至竞争的意识形态间的挣扎；2）微观层面个体结果与宏观层面社会因素之间的联系。