Unequal Advantage: Fatherhood Premiums and Penalties across Income Distribution in China
Background: Prior research on the fatherhood effect has predominantly focused on Western developed countries, in which most studies found wage premiums, particularly among higher-income fathers. The unique institutional and cultural context in China provides avenues for extending this body of scholarship.
Method: We conducted unconditional quantile regression analyses with fixed effects using data from ten waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey.
Results: Although the association between the number of children and men’s income was non-significant in the total sample, the effect of fatherhood turned out to be masked by heterogeneity across income strata. Specifically, fathers’ higher income at the bottom of the income distribution was mainly accounted for by selection. In contrast, fatherhood premiums were found among middle-income men and fatherhood penalties were observed among high-income men.
Conclusions: Our results revealed different patterns of fatherhood effect across income distribution than those found in Western developed countries. We interpret our findings based on the unique work-family context and different perceptions of fatherhood roles across income strata in China. Our study underscores the interplay of socio-cultural context and income stratification in shaping the effect of fatherhood and extends the understanding of labor-market inequalities from the views of status intersectionality. Policy interventions to raise fertility rates in China should target men as well as women and take the differential effect of fatherhood across social strata into consideration.