Marital decision-making power and husband’s happiness: evidence from a micro dataset in China

Zhongwu Li and Xueliang Feng

Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 2025, vol. 30, issue 2, 303-328

Abstract: Using a micro-level representative dataset of China, the very first paper empirically analyzes the relationship between marital decision-making power and husband’s happiness. While employing the OLS and ordinal logit model, the paper finds a negative effect of husband’s marital decision-making power on his happiness in contemporary transitioning China. The conclusion remains consistent even after conducting additional robustness tests, such as propensity score matching and instrument variable analysis. The negative effect is particularly noticeable among educated men and those men living in environments that emphasize egalitarian gender ideologies, as they tend to reject the notion of men being dominant in the family. Our findings highlight the increasing acceptance of egalitarian gender ideologies among Chinese men, especially those with higher socioeconomic status, as a result of socioeconomic advancements.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/13547860.2024.2303780

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