Living Arrangements and Women's Household Decision‐Making Power in China

Improving women's household decision‐making power benefits not only women themselves but also their children. The literature on women's household decision‐making power has focused primarily on nuclear families, overlooking the parents' role. This paper takes into account the role of women's parents and parents‐in‐law and examines if coresidence with parents or parents‐in‐law affects women's household decision‐making power. Using the Jiangsu Fertility Intention and Behavior Survey (JFIBS) data, this study finds that women living with their parents‐in‐law have lower levels of household decision‐making power, whereas those living with their own parents have higher levels. Further analysis finds that the associations between living arrangements and women's household decision‐making power differ between urban and rural areas. This study contributes to a better understanding of the complexity of household decision‐making power distribution in multigenerational families. As coresidence with parents‐in‐law declines and bilateral family patterns become more prevalent in China, women's household decision‐making power is likely to continue to improve.