Wives’ Relative Income and Marital Quality in Urban China: The Role of Perceived Equity

Huiping Zhang,Sandra Kit Man Tsang

doi:10.1007/s11211-012-0166-7

Huiping Zhang, Sandra Kit Man Tsang

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-012-0166-7

Copy DOI

Abstract

The debate over the association between wives’ relative income (WRI) and marital quality remain controversial in the west; however, this important research area has been surprisingly under-studied against the backdrop of the fast socioeconomic transition in contemporary China. Using 763 urban Chinese wives, this study examined both the mediating and the moderating role of perceived equity between WRI and marital quality. Hierarchical multiple regression indicated that urban Chinese wives’ relative income had a negative impact on their marital happiness and a positive impact on marital instability to a small extent. The mediating role of perceived equity was not supported in this study; however, perceived equity could buffer the positive effect of wives’ relative income on marital instability, especially for higher-earning wives. This study contributes to understanding wives’ socioeconomic resources and marital quality from an equity perspective in the Chinese context and generates implications for cross-cultural research on perceived equity. It also serves for marital counseling on improving higher-earning wives’ perception of fairness as well as family–friendly policy making.

Highlights

The participation of married women in the labor market has been one of the most dramatic demographic changes to contemporary urban Chinese family (Edwige &Soc Just Res (2012) 25:406–420Jin, 2005)
The debate over the association between wives’ relative income (WRI) and marital quality remain controversial in the west; this important research area has been surprisingly under-studied against the backdrop of the fast socioeconomic transition in contemporary China
Using 763 urban Chinese wives, this study examined both the mediating and the moderating role of perceived equity between WRI and marital quality

Summary

Introduction

The participation of married women in the labor market has been one of the most dramatic demographic changes to contemporary urban Chinese family (Edwige &Soc Just Res (2012) 25:406–420Jin, 2005). The participation of married women in the labor market has been one of the most dramatic demographic changes to contemporary urban Chinese family Urban married women economically contributing to the family have become the normative standard nowadays. The impact of women’s income on marital outcomes has been studied intensively in the west, and the mainstream line of study supported the economic independence hypothesis (Parsons, 1949), i.e., wives’ relative income (WRI) will lead to their marital dissatisfaction (Furdyna, Tucker, & James, 2008) and it is positively associated with the risk of divorce (Heckert, Nowak, & Snyder, 1998; Rogers & Deboer, 2001; Kalmijn, Loeve, & Manting, 2007). Substantial evidence showed that wives do a much larger proportion of housework and childcare than their husbands even when they are employed fulltime outside home (Coltrane, 2000; Greenstein, 1996); decreasing the wife’s perceived equity due to unequal division of paid and housework roles between spouse

Objectives

Methods

Results