A study on the household welfare effects of women’s working hours

Women’s participation in socio-economic activities and the marginal value of their society from nothing to something can make greater economic contributions to families and are directly related to the quality of family life. The specific content of the investment of women’s working hours on the synthesis of household welfare and the measurement of the related welfare effect should be further explored. Therefore, this paper analyzed the household welfare effect of the input of female working hours using data from the 2014, 2016, and 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Household welfare was measured by employing the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. It was found that female working hours significantly increased household welfare and that the increase of one hour in female weekly working hours would increase household welfare by 0.04%. The further refinement of working hours revealed that an inverted U-shaped relationship existed between female working hours and household welfare, with an extreme point of 68 h, which implied a phase effect. Further analysis demonstrated the occurrence of a significant increase in household welfare when the input of weekly working hours exceeded 60 h. Accordingly, it is recommended that targeted support should be provided to families in terms of their functions and needs and that the working hour system and work arrangements should be improved to facilitate the creation of a family-friendly working environment.