Longitudinal CFPS analysis links overtime work to lower marital stability in China

A longitudinal analysis of China Family Panel Studies data from 2014 to 2022 found that overtime work had a significant, persistent negative relationship with marital stability in China. The estimated effect remained statistically significant over time, although it gradually became smaller, and marital satisfaction emerged as a key channel linking participants’ overtime work to the stability of their marriages. The study examined overtime work and marital stability using longitudinal panel data from the China Family Panel Studies.

Its analysis was grounded in work-family conflict theory and the decent work deficit perspective. The researchers report that overtime work exerted a significant negative effect on marital stability, with the magnitude of that effect declining gradually across the study period but remaining statistically significant. They identified marital satisfaction as a key transmission mechanism through which the relationship between working overtime and marital outcomes was observed.

The results varied across groups. The negative effect was stronger among younger cohorts, indicating that the association between overtime and marital stability was not uniform across the analyzed population. The analysis also found a larger “marital stability penalty” for wives’ overtime work than for husbands’ overtime work.

These findings identify differences in the estimated relationship without establishing why overtime performed by wives was associated with a stronger effect. Nevertheless, the study tracked the relationship across multiple years and found that the negative association persisted after the modeled effect gradually attenuated. Published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications as peer-reviewed, accepted research, the study offers evidence that a common labor-market condition may be associated with family well-being.

Its central result is not simply that overtime work and marital stability are connected, but that the estimated relationship is persistent, stronger in specific groups, and partly transmitted through marital satisfaction.

Subject of Research: Longitudinal analysis of overtime work and marital stability in Chinese families

Article Title: Overtime work and marital stability: evidence from the China Family Panel Studies

Article References: Yang, X., Yu, H., & Zeng, Q. (2026). Overtime work and marital stability: evidence from the China Family Panel Studies. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-09369-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-026-09369-0

Keywords: overtime work, marital stability, marital satisfaction, China Family Panel Studies, longitudinal data, work-family conflict, labor conditions, family well-being, younger adults, gender differences, Overtime, work