Ethnic Inequality in China: Structural Violence, Educational Stratification, and the Rural Household Income Gap

This dissertation is divided into three papers that approach the topic of ethnic inequality in China in different ways. The first paper has two main goals: first, at the empirical level, it examines trends in household income inequality between ethnic groups in China from 1989-2009. Second, at the theoretical level, this study examines the importance of ethnicity relative to other socio-economic indicators and control variables in accounting for household income inequality over time. Using data from eight waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey, this study finds growing ethnic differences at the aggregate level between Han and non-Han Chinese. The growing difference between ethnic groups at the aggregate level is the result of two main trends: 1) increasing returns to higher education levels, certain occupational categories, and geographic regions in China; and 2) a larger proportion of Han in the categories that have experienced the greatest increases in economic returns. However, once controlling for additional variables, the analysis finds a declining significance of ethnicity as a predictor of income at the household level over time./nThe second paper draws upon 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork with a group of Uyghur Chinese Muslim entrepreneurs to examine the relevance of the concept of structural violence for understanding ethnic domination and inequality in Chinese society. Critics of structural violence have argued the concept lacks analytical precision, does not offer a clear account of change over time, and downplays the role of agency on the part of challengers. This article offers a new analytical approach to understanding structural violence. First, utilizing insights from the "multi-institutional politics" approach, this article documents changing conditions of structural violence, strategies of resistance to police pressures, and changing Uyghur identity over time. Second, the results of my fieldwork outline two mechanisms that explain how structural violence changes over time. Third, this research challenges conventional wisdom on the relationship between structural violence and agency by demonstrating how Uyghur entrepreneurs exercised greater agency under increasingly harsh climates of structural violence./nThe third paper examines educational stratification in China. Previous studies of educational stratification in China have highlighted regional differences in educational attainment between residents in urban and rural areas, the historical gender gap in educational attainment, and the increasing importance of education in shaping occupational outcomes in an era of marketization. First, this paper examines the relative importance of social origins and political background in shaping educational attainment in different historical periods of educational expansion and decline; second, it reexamines the applicability of the Maximally Maintained Inequality (MMI) hypothesis to the case of China; and third, it examines differences in educational outcomes between the Han majority and non-Han ethnic minorities. The results indicate a growing importance of parental origins, relative to political background, in educational attainment; limited support for the MMI hypothesis; and a Han advantage in making certain educational transitions.

Advisor: Gold, Thomas B.