Mobile Phones as Interactive Technologies Mediating Gendered Work-Life Conflict: A Qualitative Study on Women in STEM

Gendered Division of Digital Labor in Parenting: A Qualitative Study in Urban China

“…Consistent with findings reported in the literature (Clark, 2013;Dutta, 2020;Lim, 2020), most of the mothers in this study reported more time and involvement than the fathers in using digital technology and media for parenting. The 80 mothers reported an average of 4.78 h per day of overall digital technology and media use (including for work, entertainment, and childcare) and an average of 1.41 h per day using it for parenting.…”

“…Given that mothers perform many childcare duties on their mobile phones by browsing webpages, clicking, scrolling, and typing messages, it is hard for other family members to tell the difference or draw boundaries between their childcare and personal leisure. Moreover, digital labor is scattered and usually penetrates into daily work and activities (Dutta, 2020;Lim, 2020). For instance, some of the mothers browsed online parenting posts or online shops while taking a short break from work.…”

“…Meanwhile, with the digitalization of childcare, some physical labor has been replaced by digital labor and the immaterial work related to information, communication, planning, and coordination has become an important part of parenting (Fortunati, 2007). In this context, some studies have noted that mothers are more burdened by the digitalization of childcare, with fathers having only limited involvement in online parenting activities and less interest in the use of online resources and knowledge for parenting (Clark, 2013;Dutta, 2020;Dworkin et al, 2018;He & Dworkin, 2015;Lim, 2020). Nevertheless, no study has drawn on the experiences of both mothers and fathers to systematically examine how the digital labor associated with childcare is divided between them.…”

“…Another two families adopted an egalitarian model with husbands and wives equally involved in online parent-teacher communication. After joining teacher-parent WeChat or QQ groups, most of the mothers had to constantly be alert to the messages, announcements, and assignments posted by teachers (Dutta, 2020;Lim, 2020). As Yan said, "You have to check the messages in the parent-teacher WeChat group every day.…”

“…Despite this analogy, there has been little analysis of digital labor in the domestic sphere. Although a few recent studies (Dutta, 2020;Lim, 2020) have noted that mothers are more burdened by the digitalization of work and childcare, they have focused either on mothers' work-family conflicts or on parent-child interactions. Little is known about how digital labor is divided between mothers and fathers in the domestic sphere in general and in the context of childcare in particular.…”