Marital Power Structure in Two Chinese Societies: Measurement and Mechanisms

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)INTRODUCTIONThe changing conjugal relationship has become a focal issue in family research in East Asia. Despite a complicated cultural and normative background, marital power as the conventional concept remains salient, and is shown to capture the core component of conjugal relations (Yi & Tsai, 1989; Chen, Yi, & Lu, 2000; Chu & Yu, 2010). Previous studies have documented the important effect of ideational shift, the enhancement of personal resources, and changing structural opportunities for women, including a decrease in co-residence with elderly parents and increase of paid employment, in the region (Xu, 2006; Lin & Yi, 2013; Xie «& Zhu, 2009; Pimentel «fe Liu, 2004). Those who exercise greater power in the conjugal relationship are regarded as having higher family status (Yi, Lu, & Pan, 2000).This paper intends to address this issue by focusing on changes in women's domestic status from a comparative perspective. Taiwan and Shanghai are chosen as the loci of the study because of their cultural homogeneity and political heterogeneity. It is expected that certain family universal may continue to dominate in the family process, while others may appear to fluctuate due to various constraints from the social system. The findings will allow us to delineate the relative impact of cultural norms and personal resources in conjugal relations.Measuring Marital PowerIt should be pointed out that the traditional measurement of the marital power structure has confronted several drawbacks, and significant bias may be caused. In brief, application of the same weight to different marital power indicators and the lack of conjugal data are two noted shortcomings. Reliance on one domain of conjugal dynamics is another clear disadvantage. This paper thus aims to provide a better measurement of marital power and to use a multilevel model to analyze dyadic couple data so that meaningful comparative findings may be achieved.Problem of One Single DimensionIt is well documented that the concept of marital power has been variously defined. The final outcome of family decision-making, patterns of tension and conflict management, or types of prevailing division of household labor are used to reflect women's family status (SaflliosRothschild, 1970; McDonald, 1980). Although there is consensus that the division of household labor and family decision-making patterns can be seen as substitute indicators of marital power, the relative importance of these two aspects of conjugal relations pertaining to the essence of marital power is seldom discussed. Take Taiwan for example. The division of household labor in Taiwan is extremely traditional: household labor is mainly performed by wives only (Lee, Yang, & Yi, 2000). In contrast, major pattem of family decision-making is somewhat more balancedboth husband and wife take part in the process (Yi & Yang, 1995). Under such circumstances, it is imperative to simultaneously consider both family decisions and household division of labor so as to attain a more comprehensive understanding ofthe marital power structure (Chen et al., 2000; Lu & Yi, 2005).Problem of Equal WeightTo further reiterate, the problem in measuring marital power arises from the fact that power is not one-dimensional. Having greater power in one area of family decision-making does not necessarily mean having the same power in another domain. In an attempt to integrate more than two indicators to carry out the analysis, most studies have been criticized for using a scoring system that lacks a theoretical basis. In other words, when multiple indicators are collected, the most common practice is to assign equal weight to each indicator, then sum up the total score as the final index of conjugal power (Blood & Wolfe, 1960; Burr, Ahem, & Knowles, 1977; Chen & Li, 2004; Lu & Yi 2005; Lee et al., 2000; Tang, 2003). …