Says Who?: Decision-Making and Conflicts among Chinese-Canadian and Mainland Chinese Parents of Young Children

The present study explores the decision-making process and conflicts on infant care issues among Chinese mothers and fathers in Canada and China. The study utilized a mother-father informant approach and analyzed inter-parental agreement on parents' responses. The participants included 127 families of 1-year old infants (68 Chinese-Canadians, 59 mainland Chinese). The findings revealed that parents used various strategies in making decisions about child issues such as mothers taking the lead, joint (mother-father) decisions, taking the child's interest into consideration, and seeking advice from extended families and professionals. Differences were found by gender of the parent and by country. The inter-parental agreements for how decisions were made and the types of conflicts that occurred were relatively low.