Ethnicity & Income Inequality in China

Christopher B. Sullivan, University of California, Berkeley

Academic works on inequality in China have documented China’s growing regional inequalities, yet paid far less attention to inequality along ethnic lines. The handful of direct studies on ethnic inequality in China have yet to reach agreement over whether ethnic inequality is largely the result of ethnicity, or a consequence of well-documented regional inequalities. This study analyzes whether ethnic inequality in family income is the result of ethnicity per se, or a combination of other factors, particularly the respondent’s region of residence using data at the individual level. While at first glance there may be inequality between the Han and non-Han in family income, using panel data from 1989 through 2006 I show that such differences can better be explained through regional inequalities and socio-economic measures.