Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Parental Division of Childcare
As an important aspect of family life,division of childcare not only affects married couples'labor force par-ticipation,marital quality,and child development,but also has significant influences on childbearing decision-making.With the advancement of educational expansion,changes have occurred in China's educational assortative mating,lead-ing to transformations in the negotiation and interaction processes between spouses.Using data from the China Educa-tion Panel Survey(CEPS)in the 2014～2015 academic year,this study examines the associations between parents'ed-ucational assortative mating and the division of three childcare activities,including basic care,educational,and recre-ational activities.Results show that,firstly,mothers consistently play the primary role in basic care across all patterns of parents'educational assortative mating.Mothers'time is greater than that of fathers.Secondly,the division of educa-tional childcare activity is significantly affected by parents'educational assortative mating,with the one with a relative-ly higher education taking more responsibilities.However,in educational homogamous marriages,mothers devote more time than fathers.Thirdly,fathers in female hypergamous marriages are more likely to participate jointly with mothers in recreational childcare activity,but do not replace mothers'role as the primary caregiver.This study indicates that the division of childcare among parents of adolescents is shaped by the interaction between rational considerations based on parents'relative education and macro-level gender cultures.In general,mothers remain the primary caregivers,where-as fathers are more likely to take on the secondary role in childrearing.In light of these findings,this study proposes to foster harmonious families and address declining fertility rates by advancing gender equality cultures in childcare and offering targeted childrearing policies and services.
Educational Assortative MatingDivision of ChildcareGender Role Norms
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
维普
