The Effect Of Gender Equality On The Consistency Of Couples’ Fertility Intention

In recent years,in order to actively respond to the low fertility rate in China,the government has gradually relaxed restrictions on childbirth and provided policy support for fertility.However,in the context of childbirth returning to the family,the implementation of policies still faces many challenges and has not played its due role.As an important factor affecting family dynamics,gender equality between couples plays an undeniable role in the sustained low fertility rate.Existing literature focuses on measuring gender equality through the concept of gender roles or actual gender division of labor and analyzing its impact on reproductive intention or behavior.However,the relationship between gender equality is not completely consistent in two dimensions of ideology and behavior.In reality,gender division of labor has strong traditional inertia and lags behind the change of gender role concept.Previous studies have overlooked the effect of this "gap" between concept and behavior on fertility intention.In view of this,from the perspective of China’s social system and cultural context,this paper explores the mechanism of the matching relationship between gender role concept and gender division of labor on reproductive intention,and expands the understanding of the connotation and expression of gender equality in marital relationships and its reproductive effects in China.This article uses the 2020 China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)survey data.By matching couples and using gender role attitudes as an indicator of attitudes/beliefs to measure gender equality,and actual household division of labor as a behavioral indicator,the article explores the impact of attitudes,behavior,and the matching relationship between attitudes and behavior on couples’ reproductive desires at the individual and couple levels.The study found:1.The effects of gender role attitudes and household division of labor on reproductive desires are different and mutually influential.In terms of the effect of household division of labor,a husband’s greater participation in household chores can increase his wife’s desire to have children,but it will reduce the husband’s desire to have children.This shows that the effect of household division of labor on the reproductive desires of couples has a significant gender difference.The role of gender role attitudes is mainly reflected in its adjustment of the relationship between household division of labor and reproduction.Therefore,the effect of household division of labor on reproductive desires cannot be simply attributed to the linear relationship that the party who takes on more household chores will have a lower desire to have children;it needs to be balanced with the potential influence of gender role attitudes.2.From the individual level,the modernization of male gender role concept and housework division is in favor of improving female fertility intention,but has no effect on male fertility intention.In the group with high work-life conflict,women expect men to play their due responsibilities in the family.3.Further,from the perspective of husband and wife,the modernization of husband concept and division of labor has improved the couple’s overall fertility intention.When a husband supports gender equality "in word and deed" and takes more responsibility for housework voluntarily,it helps couples better coordinate work and family,not only reduces the conflict between career development and family responsibilities,but also promotes the couple to share the responsibility of reproduction and reaches the consensus that the couple wants to have a child.This study empirically verifies the form and applicability of the second stage of the two-stage gender revolution theory in China.The modernization of gender role concept and gender division of labor can improve the reproductive intention of women and families as a whole.In addition,the research confirms that there is a gap between the attitudinal and behavioral indicators of gender equality,and both of them have a significant effect on reproductive intention.Therefore,a single dimension of gender equality may cover up the real mechanism of gender equality affecting fertility,so as to get a biased or completely contrary conclusion to the actual situation.This paper argues that,in the process of promoting gender equality,it is not only the convergence of the concepts of gender roles of the couple,but also the realization of the identity of the concepts of men,which can lead to the fundamental change of the gender division of labor mode in the family,solve the problem of gender asymmetry and thus improve fertility,which is conducive to the formation of positive interaction between gender equality and fertility.Combined with the current situation of gender equality in the field of family,the force of gender equality promoting birth still has room to release.The further development of gender equality requires men to support the concept of gender equality more and take the initiative to participate in domestic work,thus making the development of gender relations a two-way street.