Family Duties and Job Flexibility

Tradeoffs for Chinese Urban, Educated Mothers with Toddlers

Bibliographic Data

ID7842289
AuthorsSung Won Kim (0000-0001-5416-0497, Yonsei University), Sungwon Kim (0000-0002-9371-8884, Yonsei University), Cong Zhang (0000-0002-2561-2113, Fudan University), Hirokazu Yoshikawa (0000-0001-5607-8526, Applied Psychology, New York University, 726 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY, USA, 10003 ().), Vanessa L Fong (Amherst College), Niobe Way (0000-0002-7066-3884, Applied Psychology, New York University, East Building, Suite 400, 239 Greene Street, New York, NY, USA, 10003 ().), Xinyin Chen (0000-0002-0952-8659, University of Pennsylvania), Xiaoyan Ke (0009-0007-7526-3875, Nanjing Brain Hospital, 264 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, 210029 ().)
Year2022
Volume53
Issue1
Pages25-47
Publication date2022-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Comparative Family Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-2328 • E-ISSN: 1929-9850
PublisherUniversity of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3138/jcfs-2021-0045
OpenAlexW4200259803
LanguageEN
References cited27

Drawing on survey and interview data from mothers of 14-month infants in Nanjing, China, we explore women’s job trajectories as they juggle work and family responsibilities. Four profiles that emerge among our sample of 371 mothers (high stability, rapid cyclers, high-paid wage-growth, and intermittent) reflected not only their work career trajectories but also their different strategies of managing work-family balance. High-stability mothers were more likely than the other three groups to work in state-owned enterprises and experience a negative work climate. They illustrate how China’s changing economy shape work preferences of mothers who value interest and self-fulfillment, but pursue stability to accommodate their childrearing responsibilities

China · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economic stability · Economics · Flexibility (engineering) · Labour economics · Management · Political science · Sample (material) · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Work (physics) · Early Childhood Education and Development · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Psychology · Work-Family Balance Challenges

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