Chinese Fathers in the Twentieth Century: Changing Roles as Parents and as Men

ABSTRACT

Fathers and fatherhood are increasingly visible in social science scholarship and public discourse, although the father’s different roles are yet to be integrated. Moreover, most existing studies on fathers and fatherhood focus on either European or North American fathers, or contemporary non-Western fathers; little is known about the historical changes in fatherhood culture in non-Western contexts. This article explores how elite fathers in Republican, Socialist, and Reform-era China see their roles as parents and as men amidst dramatic social changes in intergenerational and gender relations. A close examination of five elite fathers’ family letters and autobiographical writings reveals that the parent–child hierarchy began to diminish as early as Republican-era China and continued to decrease during the Socialist and Reform eras, as seen in fathers’ increasing recognition of their children’s autonomy and the heightened sense of intimacy in the father–child bond. However, changes in gender relations, especially in the fathers’ generation (as opposed to the fathers’ gender beliefs and practices towards their children) followed a much less straightforward path. The asynchronized changes in different facets of Chinese fatherhood may be attributed to the unique and complicated modern history of China in the twentieth century.

KEYWORDS:

• Fatherhood
• gender
• intergenerational relations
• China
• social history

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The conversion of historical dates was conducted through the information technology service provided by Academia Sinica at https://sinocal.sinica.edu.tw/. The translations of all quotes from the family letters and autobiographical writings were conducted by the author unless specified. Readers are welcome to contact the author for the Chinese originals of these quotes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xuan Li

Xuan Li is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at NYU Shanghai and is an affiliated member of NYU-ECNU Institute for Social Development, and Department of Applied Psychology, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She holds a Ph.D. and an MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology from the University of Cambridge, and undergraduate degrees in Germanistik and Psychology from Peking University.

Xuan Li’s research focuses on fatherhood, parent-child interactions and relationships, and children and adolescents’ socioemotional development in contemporary Chinese societies. She is also interested in general issues pertaining to human development, family research, and gender studies.