Stereotypes are often used when people make judgment about others. But for some topics they can contradict each other. The stereotypes about Chinese are not exception.

Recently in “Yahoo! Answers” I encountered a question of one girl who asked for people’s opinion regarding Chinese men and how their behavior changes after the status transition from boyfriend to husband. Among multiple replies to the poster’s question, two drew my attention. Here is the first one (slightly edited by me):

Chinese men expect you to do all housework and take care of children. He will only give you some money to do it… We have an idiom about it: “After marriage men have more free time, but women – no time at all”. It’s because she is doing everything, from paying bills to cleaning the house and feeding children. Women do it all ALONE! And men think that it’s OK because they give you some money…

Another answer said:

Not sure about Chinese men in China. But my husband and my in-laws (we are Chinese Malaysians) are pretty good to me. He’s supportive, never ever mentally, verbally nor physically abused me, cares for the kids, doesn’t question me on how I spend his money, respects me and my parents, responsible and even got me a maid though I’m not working. And I get along with my Mom-in-law, too! So what if he’s not romantic…

Both camps (“selfish Chinese husband camp” and “caring Chinese husband camp”) have solid explanations to rationalize and backup their theories.
Those who think that Chinese men have reasons to be helping and considerate can point to the big surplus of marriageable age males in today’s China, which creates competition for brides and “forces” guys to align their behavior with girls’ expectations.

The opponents will claim that being a good boyfriend does not mean being a good life partner in the future. Besides, the high requirements to future husbands are mostly set by modern urban girls who also have high standards for partner’s education level and financial security. And here demand vs. supply are in inverse proportion since too few Chinese men fit these standards. That’s why there are so many urban Chinese girls called “leftovers” (who are still single in their late twenties – not something to be proud of in China).

Here is a quote from an interesting article “Advice for Chinese women” by Sam Zanahar:

Chinese husbands in China are well aware that their wives fear endangering their marriage, especially once the couple has a child.
Because Chinese husbands do not have to fear that their wives will desert them lightly (Chinese woman in China will experience an enormous drop in sexual market value once divorced with a child), some Chinese husbands change tremendously, when compared to the times the two were boyfriend and girlfriend.
They will burden their wives with more and more work, and often will search for other women to have sexual relationships with. And sometimes they will not even care if the wives find out.

For a long time housework has been a woman’s duty in family. But with women’s influx to the labor market (China has one of the highest female employment rates in the world) and their salaries becoming an important part of family’s income, they rightfully expect their husbands to share household responsibilities.

The problem is that men often don’t hurry to change. Although most of them agree that they should do more domestic work, they usually regard themselves as “helpers” and leave their wives unsatisfied with the inequality of housework division. As surveys show women have become increasingly angry at their husbands because of their unwillingness to do a larger share of the work (Townsend and O’Neil, 1990).

The article “Chinese Husbands’ Participation in Household Labor” gives interesting figures:

A study by Zhang and Farley (1995) compared the division of household labor for a sample of female college professors and their spouses in China and in the United States. Findings revealed that Chinese husbands did 24% of the cooking on average, 34% of the dish washing, 26% of the laundry, and 20% of the shopping. American husbands averaged 27, 31, 19, and 31 percent of these tasks, respectively. These comparisons suggest that husbands’ contributions to household labor are about the same in both countries, at least among intellectual families.
A study of two rural Chinese villages found that 26 percent of young husbands, 31 percent of middle-aged husbands, and 35 percent of elderly husbands NEVER did any housework (All-China Women’s Federation, 1993).

Of course, there are always exceptions from the rules - as in this anecdotal report about Chinese man who willingly turned into a full-time househusband.

But why do we talk about statistics? Let’s see how the male readership of LoveLoveChina rates. Naturally, the only condition to cast your vote in the poll below is that you are a man.

Hoping for a diligent husband, Crystal Tao

Note: since the pages are cached – you will not immediately see your vote being counted in. It will however show up after some time…