Abstract: 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.

Key words: labor, labor force, labor law, household labor, housework, women