Wives, Mothers, Players: Chinese Married Women's Affective Labor in Otome Gaming

ABSTRACT Objective This study examined how married Chinese women sustain otome gaming practices within everyday family life through the lens of affective labor. Background For married women in Chinese families, the coexistence of Confucian familism and neoliberal individualization creates a moral tension in which self‐oriented leisure is simultaneously desired and delegitimized. Although otome games offer emotional fulfillment and relational autonomy, how married women integrate them into domestic life remains underexplored. Method Drawing on 24 in‐depth interviews with married Chinese women and supplementary social media data from Weibo and Xiaohongshu , analyzed through thematic analysis framed by affective labor. Results Three layered forms of affective labor sustained women's gaming: boundary management (organizing time and space for play within domestic routines), relationship management (negotiating gaming practices with family), and self‐management (balancing self‐expectation, self‐fulfillment, and self‐restraint). Conclusion Otome gaming operates as a negotiated form of leisure embedded in domestic relationships, where women exercise relational rather than individual agency through affective labor. Implications This study extends family and game studies by conceptualizing married women's digital leisure as affective labor embedded in household relationships. Practically, the findings suggest that family practitioners and educators should recognize women's digital leisure as legitimate self‐care, emotional recovery, and relational negotiation.