Family power structure and women’s subjective well-being: evidence from China

Grounded in the identity-behaviour theory, the research examines the relationship between family power structure and married women’s subjective well-being (SWB). Utilizing a sample size of 6, 924 from the China Family Panel Studies in 2014, our investigation, employing both the OLS and ordinal logit models, reveals that a wife’s SWB is dependent on her husband’s predominant role in significant family matters. To mitigate potential endogeneity concerns, we apply the instrument variable approach to ensure the robustness of our findings. Our results underscore that this dependence effect is particularly prominent among those women adhering to traditional gender beliefs (i.e. men dominate the outside and women the inside). These outcomes shed light on the prevailing influence of traditional cultural norms on the SWB of married women, thereby furnishing a foundation for government to formulate policies aimed at fostering women’s empowerment.