Fertility and Childcare in East Asia

This textbook explores recent research on the topics of gender inequalities, intergenerational support, and family in select East Asian societies, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. East Asian societies have been undergoing rapid economic development over the last three decades, whether gender (couple) relations and families in East Asian societies have also been undergoing transformations remain less clear. The chapters in this book uncover dynamic and evolving couple and intergenerational relationships within families in East Asia, together with the persistent impact on time use, housework and childcare. They provide a rich source for understanding gender dynamics, intergenerational relations, and childbearing and rearing in East Asia, at a time when it is expected that families and gender relations in East Asia will continue to evolve with characteristics of both modern gender egalitarian values and traditional family obligations. A rare and valuable resource, this textbook will be a key resource for researchers, scholars and practitioners of Sociology, Development Studies, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Comparative studies who wish to study gender and family relations in East Asia, a rapidly developing region with a shared Confucian culture. The chapters in this volume were originally published in Chinese Sociological Review.

Xiaogang Wu is the Yufeng Global Professor of Social Science, Professor of Sociology at New York University and NYU Shanghai, and the Founding Director of Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER) at NYU Shanghai. Wu is a leading scholar in research on Chinese inequality and social stratification. He has published over 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and he has been serving as the Chief Editor of the Chinese Sociological Review since 2011, Associate Editor (Social Stratification) of Sociology Compass (2023-2025), and a Global Scholar at Princeton University (2020-2024). Muzhi Zhou is Assistant Professor at the Urban Governance and Design Thrust of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Guangzhou, China. Her research focuses on the role of marriage and parenthood in shaping people's attitudes, income, and time use, with a particular emphasis on cross-country comparisons. Additionally, she explores the intersection between the digital world and our physical world, examining how digital technology affects and is affected by our daily lives. Man-Yee Kan is Professor of Sociology, University of Oxford, UK. Her research interests include gender inequalities in the family and the labor market, time use research, ethnicity, and migration. She has been awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2018-2026) for the project GenTime, which investigates gender inequalities in time use in East Asian and Western societies. Her more recent research focuses on the migration of Hong Kong people.

Introduction 1. Education and Childrearing Decision-Making in East Asia 2. Intergenerational co-residence and young couple's time use in China 3. Intergenerational living arrangements and marital fertility in Japan: a counterfactual approach 4. Who brings more gender equality in couple's time use in Hong Kong-co-resident elderly parents or helpers? 5. Couples' division of labor and fertility in Taiwan 6. Gendered housework under China's privatization: the evolving role of parents 7. Resource Bargaining and Gender Display in Housework and Care Work in Modern China 8. Women's Fertility Autonomy in Urban China: The Role of Couple Dynamics Under the Universal Two-Child Policy 9. Childcare Needs and Household Composition: Is Household Extension a Way of Seeking Childcare Support 10. Fertility Decline and Women's Status Improvement in China 11. The Varying Display of "Gender Display": A Comparative Study of Mainland China and Taiwan