Stay-at-Home Fatherhood and Masculinities in China

Fei Huang is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the UCL Social Research Institute. She previously worked as a Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of St Andrews. Prior to her career in academia, Fei worked as a translator and interpreter in both the UK and China.

"Fei Huang's monograph is a landmark contribution to fatherhood studies and a long-overdue intervention in a field still dominated by Northern epistemologies. By centring stay-at-home fathers in mainland China, and weaving together TV drama, social media discourse and two rounds of interviews with 22 men, Huang shows with rigour and sensitivity how caring masculinities are produced, contested, and constrained. Her attention to intergenerational dynamics, intensive parenting and the relational nature of gender makes this an analytically rich and theoretically generative book that is essential reading for scholars of gender, family and masculinities globally."Anna Tarrant, Professor of Sociology, University of Lincoln"This beautifully written book offers groundbreaking data and analysis of media representations and original interviews with stay-at-home fathers (SAHFs) in China. It reveals intriguing and often unexpected themes: some men experience shame about being SAHFs and seek to conceal this identity, while others strategically embrace it, transforming their status into commercial opportunities as dad bloggers or entrepreneurs in the childcare sector. Contradictions and contrasts emerge elsewhere, too, in SAHFs’ accounts of their own parenting practices in contrast to their perceptions of how women parent, and in the diverse parenting models they embrace, from intensive parenting to child-centred approaches. Yet some deeply entrenched assumptions endure: paid employment remains highly valued as a source of masculine status. As the author demonstrates, the emergence of SAHFs does not signal an unequivocally progressive transformation of fatherhood in China. Rather, this insightful book captures with remarkable nuance the complex interplay of change and continuity that characterises stay-at-home fatherhood in contemporary China."Derek Hird, Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies, Lancaster University "Rich and insightful, this book reveals the contradictory potential of stay-at-home fatherhood for more equal gender relations. Drawing on analyses of television dramas, social media discourse and in-depth interviews with stay-at-home fathers in China, Huang shows that, for some men, the role fosters more equal and negotiated family relationships; for others, the loss of breadwinner status generates new claims to authority through discourses of productivity and superior fathering. Huang beautifully weaves the analyses together to understand when and why such transformations are hindered or fostered by local policies, discourses and networks. A must read for fatherhood scholars."Katherine Twamley, Professor of Sociology, University College London

• 1. Making sense of stay-at-home fatherhood: introduction to the study 2. Depictions in TV dramas 3. Perceptions on social media 4. Identity positioning in work and care 5. Identity positioning at home and in caregiving communities 6. Education and child development 7. Negotiating housework and caring labour 8. Concluding thoughts