晚清以来，通过日本的译介，"劳动"成为社会化大生产之下能够产生利润、阶级性的集体劳力。现代"劳动"观把人的复杂劳力等级化，把工业、农业生产性劳动置于顶端，而把与社会化大生产关系不密切的无酬家庭劳动置于底端。虽然"劳动"的多重涵义并未消失，人们对妇女家庭劳动的价值亦有不同评价，但五四时期，生产性劳动成为时代主题，妇女家庭劳动的议题被相对边缘化。推崇现代"劳动"观的论述倾向于采取社区合作，甚至阶级革命的全盘计划消除家庭劳动，将解放出来的妇女劳力纳入生产性劳动。此后，民国各种劳动法专业知识对"劳动"作出了定义，生产性劳动被归入劳动法，有酬的家庭劳动处于劳动法的边缘，而妇女无酬的家庭劳动被归属到民法的范围内，固化了妇女承担家务是亲属义务的认知。

Since the late Qing Dynasty, "labor" in Chinese context has gradually become a key political-economic concept emphasizing the collective productive labor exercised in modern factories and public spaces. By placing public labor in industry and agriculture at the top of the hierarchy and unpaid household labor at the bottom, the modern concept of labor overshadowed housework that has been traditionally done by women. Despite of multiple implications of labor and different evaluations of women's household labor, productive labor became the mainstream of the times and the issues on women's household labor were marginalized during the May 4^th period. Discourses that advocated a modern perspective of labor sought to eliminate household labor by adopting community cooperation and even the whole set of class revolution, and then absorb woman labor force emancipated from housework into productive labor. In the period of the Republic of China, according to the definition of labor law, while productive labor was ascribed to labor law and the paid household labor ascribed to the margin of labor law, the unpaid woman household labor was ascribed to civil law, which strengthened the perception that women's bearing of housework is their duty to family.