Family patronage, institutional patronage, and work family conflict: women’s employment status and subjective well-being in urban China

This paper concerns women’s life chances by investigating the relationship between women’s employment status and their subjective well-being. Based on the segmented labor market structure in urban China, we divide urban women into three groups, i.e., women working in the public sector, women working in the private sector, and women who are not in the labor market. Analyzing data from the 2013 Chinese General Social Survey, we find that (1) married women in better family economic situations are more likely to opt out of the labor force; (2) compared to women working in the public sector, women working in the private sector spend more hours in paid work per week; and (3) among the three groups, women working in the private sector have the lowest level of subjective well-being. Adopting the new institutionalist perspective, we propose three mechanisms, i.e., family patronage, institutional patronage, and work-family conflict, to interpret the empirical findings. Our research highlights how women’s employment and subjective well-being are shaped both by institutional context and normative environment.