The Exhausting Lives of China’s ‘Mompreneurs’
Siyuan wakes up at 6 a.m. sharp every day. As the founder of a creative landscaping company in the southern megacity of Shenzhen, the 47-year-old has her schedule set to the minute: At 7:40 a.m., she drops her 6-year-old son off at school, then spends the next hour reading. She arrives at the office at 9, and at noon takes a quick break for lunch and a workout. She picks her son up at 6, then it’s more work or, during slow periods, sports. Even on weekends, her days are packed with hiking or art classes.
Siyuan is the epitome of a new class of women emerging in China: efficient, self-disciplined, high-achieving, and obsessed with balancing their home lives with their careers. Over the past eight years, I’ve interviewed 43 of these “mompreneurs.” Most are college graduates with experience working in a mix of state-affiliated and private enterprises. They have large networks and typically own their own homes. In other words, they are elite, financially independent women with the ample social and cultural resources required for entrepreneurship.
This archetype is especially noticeable in economically developed regions like what Chinese policymakers refer to as the “Greater Bay Area” — a proposed economic hotspot centered on Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. In 2022, the Chinese recruitment company Liepin reported that 65% of working women in the GBA hoped to start a business, far exceeding the national average of 48%. The region, which has a long tradition of commerce, is home to some of China’s largest and most important industrial and manufacturing hubs, covering everything from electronics to clothing and toys.
Compared to the average working person, the female entrepreneurs I interviewed evince total physical and mental commitment to both their careers and their home lives. Many of the mothers I interviewed made particular note of how little they slept after their kids were born, their husbands’ or partners’ incompetence at household chores, and the help they received from elderly family members or nannies to make it through the postpartum period. In one breath they’d talk about how “working hard for a career” had laid the foundation for their families; in the next, they emphasized the priority they gave their children, saying, “If my children aren’t happy, then everything is meaningless.”
Maintaining this balance is complicated. Most of the entrepreneurial mothers I interviewed stopped breastfeeding after a month. Instead, they pumped milk at work and brought it home at night, or else they used formula.
Once their children were a little older and started going to school, they leveraged the resources they had on hand to embody their idea of the “perfect mother,” even if doing so meant occasionally crossing boundaries. For instance, after having her second child, 48-year-old Bobo created a “parenting team” consisting of a nanny, her nephew, and a colleague. The nanny handled the day-to-day care; the nephew helped with a variety of work and personal tasks; and the colleague juggled her child’s home and schooling needs. “Most moms can only rely on their families, but I have the advantage of being able to use my employees,” Bobo explained.
Likewise, when Crystal was hiring a new employee for her teahouse, she opted for a woman whose child was about the same age as her son and lived nearby. “That way I can have her look after him when I travel for work,” she said. “I have a husband, but he can’t handle childcare on his own.”
Most mompreneurs are resourceful and independent. This is especially true for business owners, who can substitute the physical, day-to-day care of motherhood with social services (like babysitters, domestic workers, and drivers) and organizational resources (like company premises, equipment, and employees). It’s worth noting, however, that these resources are self-created and ultimately premised on their firms’ continued profitability.
Even though they outsource some of the physical aspects of motherhood, mompreneurs do still make time in their packed schedules to look after and spend time with their children, both in order to fulfill their role as mothers and to provide emotional care. To an extent, they share the same maternal identity as women of other classes: They believe that only mothers can provide their kids the very best. They cannot shirk their “gender responsibilities,” because in their view, neither their spouses nor their parents have the ability or the willingness to do what they can for their kids.
Ultimately, although my interviewees frequently brought up the concept of “balance” in our interviews, it was clear that their idea of “balance” did not challenge the existing gender divisions of labor in the family, much less the ongoing social expectation that mothers must take the lead in maximizing their children’s welfare. Nor did they attempt to leverage their comparatively elite status to affect any social changes.
Instead, they partitioned their lives into their career, childcare, and self-improvement with an astonishing degree of self-discipline, all while endeavoring to navigate the status quo. The more they add to their schedules, the greater the importance they attach to organization. Unable to meaningfully challenge China’s existing family culture or gender norms, they fall back on self-improvement as a cure-all. It’s an incredible balancing act — but it’s also a cold reality: one that threatens to overwhelm even their extraordinary self-discipline.
Translator: Katherine Tse; editor: Wu Haiyun.
(Header image: VSI/VCG)
