<p>This study explored how parents’ employment status influenced family adjustment and parental stress in urban China. Based in a large city in South China, we surveyed 17,459 parents of children from fourth to sixth grade in 49 schools in 2021. Results showed that for fathers, employment had a positive association with perceived family adjustment, which in turn could reduce parental stress. However, for mothers, employment had a negative association with perceived family adjustment, resulting in increased parental stress. Furthermore, for employed fathers, weekly working hours had little association with their parenting. For employed mothers, the longer they worked, the worse their family adjustment, and the higher their parental stress. This suggest that despite the government’s promotion of gender equality, traditional gender role ideologies still expect women to take on child care duty, regardless of their employment status. Now that the country is facing declining fertility rate and the government is aggressively encouraging couples to have more children, to avoid placing more childcare burden on women, as well as to allow men to enjoy quality time with their child, a change in gender role ideologies, needs to happen at personal, organizational, and societal level.</p>