Abstract
To date, nearly no extant research has examined how individual-level, relational-level, and social-level factors and contexts influence people’s time spent on housework together. In this research, I innovatively integrated the provincial data from the China Statistical Yearbook and the individual data from the China Family Panel Survey to explore how married women’s time spent on housework was influenced by the relational and social contexts they live in after controlling for their individual characteristics. Specifically, I investigated whether and how family living arrangements (relational context) and the level of gender inequality in each province (social context) affect the housework of married women from different social groups. The finding indicated that the presence of parents and in-laws in the household decrease women's housework time, which supports intergenerational exchange and support hypothesis. This study also identified one province-level factor (sex ratio at birth) to be significantly associated with women’s housework, suggesting that greater gender equality at the regional level can reduce resident married women’s time doing housework.