Abstract
The present study explores the decision-making process and conflicts on infant care issues among Chinese mothers and fathers in Canada and China. The study utilized a mother–father informant approach and analyzed inter-parental agreement on parents’ responses. The participants included 127 families of 1-year old infants (68 Chinese–Canadians, 59 mainland Chinese). The findings revealed that parents used various strategies in making decisions about child issues such as mothers taking the lead, joint (mother–father) decisions, taking the child’s interest into consideration, and seeking advice from extended families and professionals. Differences were found by gender of the parent and by country. The inter-parental agreements for how decisions were made and the types of conflicts that occurred were relatively low.
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Acknowledgement
We would like to thank all the Chinese families in Canada and China who participated in this study. We are also grateful to the many research and community assistants who conducted the interviews and coded all the interviews. Also, we would like to thank Syracuse University and Peking University for sponsoring this project.
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Chuang, S.S., Su, Y. Says Who?: Decision-Making and Conflicts among Chinese-Canadian and Mainland Chinese Parents of Young Children. Sex Roles 60, 527–536 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9537-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9537-9