Understanding the Heterogeneity of Young Caregivers' Lives and Experiences in China

Young caregivers are children who provide unpaid, long-term care to parents and/or other family members who have chronic illnesses or disabilities. When worldwide studies demonstrate how adult women’s unpaid care at home compromised their well-being, career, and other aspects of their lives, there is a gender-related gap in the young caregiver literature. Meanwhile, compared to profound research and policies in many countries, young caregivers in China have yet to be recognised and studied, leaving these children unsupported. This exploratory study uses an intersectional approach to understand the heterogeneity of these children’s caregiving experiences, drawing unique insights that the number of hours spent on caregiving cannot provide. From Nov 2022 to Jan 2024, I carried out participant observations with young carer families in urban and rural China; I also interviewed 30 young carers aged 12 to 17, and 30 care recipients, respectively. The findings show evident gendered distribution of children’s caregiving in different family structures under a persistent patriarchal hierarchy in China. For example, adults generally loved their children and were aware that children’s caregiving might compromise their education; they still believed that sons and daughters occupy different positions in family and society according to their gender obligations, especially in rural areas. Meanwhile, young male carers were more willing to help with gender-appropriate caregiving tasks instead of doing ‘feminine’ tasks which may impose resistance in constructing their masculinity. Also, when mothers’ buffers at home were unavailable, girls were more likely than boys to act as ‘natural substitutes’ by compensating for their mothers’ deficiencies in providing care, and they were inclined to imitate mothers’ caregiving behaviour. In summary, this study argues that young carer families serve as the primary site of gender socialisation and reproduction of gender inequality, and children’s gender and age (i.e., childhood) would further cause their vulnerability.