Household activities contribute nearly one-third of carbon emissions in China. The multi-layer perspective on the socioeconomic drivers of household-driven carbon emissions downscales the driver analyses from the aggregated level to the level of individual industrial chain paths. This can support refined household mitigation measures at the path level, which has not been well characterized. This study investigated the multi-layer drivers of critical industrial chain paths responsible for the changes of household-driven carbon emissions in China during 2012–2020. The top-ranked industrial chain paths, regarding the total amount, the increment, and the driving effects of household-driven emissions, were identified as critical paths. From the consumption perspective, per capita consumption was the main driver for shorter (0th and 1st layers) paths during 2012–2018. During 2018–2020, per capita consumption and carbon emission intensity were the dominant drivers for urban and rural paths, respectively. From the income perspective, the intermediate output structural effect contributed over 45% of the emissions in longer (than 1st layer) paths during 2012–2018. From 2018 to 2020, the changes in per capita income had the largest impact on the critical paths in each production layer. Furthermore, for a particular industrial chain path, multi-layer drivers could have opposite effects on household-driven emissions across different time periods. These findings demonstrate the importance of the multi-layer perspective in revealing new industrial chain hotspots for carbon reductions at the household level. In the context of China's common prosperity, this study proposed more fine-grained household mitigation measures based on the collaboration among governments, enterprises, and households from both consumption and income perspectives.