China Country brief no. 3 January 2011 Indigenous Peoples 64763 Ethnic disparities in China: geography, rurality, and socioeconomic welfare Emily Hannum China has 55 official minority groups. Chinese Household Income Project, minori- Emily Hannum Together, they constitute over 8 percent of the ties were 1.5–2 times as likely as their Han (hannumem@ssc.upenn.edu) population, according to the 2000 census. The counter parts, a multiplier that would probably is associate professor of sociology at the University term “minority� is not synonymous with the be larger if urban areas were included. About a of Pennsylvania. term “indigenous�: in China some subgroups third of ethnic minority villages sampled were Meiyan Wang of the majority population meet international in nationally designated poor counties, com- (wangmy@cass.org.cn) definitions of indigenous peoples, while some pared with about a fifth of nonminority vil- is associate professor of ethnic minority populations do not. Ethnic lages. Rural minorities have less access to wage population and labor economics at the Chinese minority groups are diverse in history, culture, employment and receive lower wages than Academy of Social Sciences. language, and socioeconomic circumstances. rural Han. Household income is also lower Some groups enjoy social and economic advan- among rural ethnic minorities. Children are tage compared with the majority Han popula- especially affected—more than 1 child in 10 tion, but many others are highly vulnerable to from a rural minority household lived below poverty. Thus, on the whole, ethnic minority the official poverty line, compared with about groups are disadvantaged. This brief discusses 1 in 25 from a rural Han household—and the the average socioeconomic circumstances household income of rural minority children among ethnic minorities and illustrates the was just under two-thirds that of rural Han diversity among ethnic minorities with exam- household children. ples from the five largest groups—the Hui, Access to education has expanded across Manchu, Miao (Hmong), Uygur, and Zhuang. the board in recent decades, but significant Ethnic minorities are most heavily repre- attainment and enrollment differences by eth- sented in the northeast, central-south to south- nic group persist. Illiteracy rates among a few west, and northwest. Many live in regions that ethnic minority groups are similar to or lower are among the poorest in terms of rural house- than those among the Han, but illiteracy is hold income. While some groups, such as the substantially higher among many others. Over Hui and Manchus, are highly urbanized, eth- the last 15 years exclusion from compulsory nic minorities in general are less urbanized education among minority youth has fallen than the majority Han population—important dramatically, but the overrepresentation of because household income per capita in urban ethnic minorities among excluded youth has areas is more than 2.5 times that in rural areas. intensified. Despite falling poverty rates, ethnic minori- Rural villages in minority areas, on average, ties are still more likely to be poor. According have less developed health care infrastructure, to data on rural households from the 2002 consistent with findings from several localized This brief is based on a chapter in the forthcoming volume, Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Development, edited by Gillette Hall and Harry Anthony Patrinos. It is not a formal publication of the World Bank. It is circulated to encourage thought and discussion, and its use and citation should take this into account. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank. IndIgenous peoples country brIef China Figure 1 Figure 2 national percent illiterate urbanization rate by by ethnic group and year, ethnic group and year adult population Percent Percent 60 2000 50 2005 1990 50 2000 2005 40 40 30 30 20 20 10 10 0 Han Zhuang Man Hui Miao Uygur Other 0 minorities Han Zhuang Manchu Hui Miao Uygur Other minorities Note: Definition of urban is that in operation at the time of Source: 1990 and 2000 Census Public use Micro-Samples; the census or survey. 2005 Mini-Census. Source: 2000 Census Microsample and 2005 Mid-censal Survey. 2 studies showing problematic maternal and child health care access for some rural minor- ity groups. More research is needed on a Box 1 national scale. caveats for estimates of majority- Geography is important in patterns of ethnic minority disparities in poverty advantage and disadvantage. More urbanized Poverty estimates are based on data from the 2002 rural ethnic minority groups and groups not con- Chinese Household income Project (CHiP) and are for rural centrated in poor regions tend to experience areas only because China does not have an official urban smaller or no disadvantages compared with poverty line. Majority-minority poverty gaps would likely the Han population. More rural ethnic minor- be larger if poverty were calculated on a national basis, because minorities are more likely to live in impoverished ity groups have less access to education and rural areas. The CHiP is the only publicly available data social safety nets—unemployment and pension source with reasonable coverage of minority areas and insurance—than do the more urbanized Han, comprehensive measures of household income, but it did Hui, and Manchu. School enrollment gaps are not cover some significant minority autonomous regions. if smaller in urban areas. Health insurance qual- these minority areas are much poorer than those included ity is also tied to location. Within rural areas in the CHiP sample, or if the poorest households in general the Manchu, Miao, and Zhuang have low access were undersampled, then minority-majority income and to health insurance—just 1  member of the poverty gaps are underestimated. There is a dire need for Miao group in 10 reports access. better data to support research on the scale of ethnic dis- Overall, Han-minority disparities across parities in poverty in China. social welfare outcomes diminish sharply when geographic differences are taken into account, suggesting that many gaps that appear as poverty alleviation efforts to improve educa- cross-ethnic differences are due to differ- tion and health will be most effective if paired ences in regional development. Considering with strategies to improve community infra- the disadvantaged contexts in which many structure and the environment for economic rural members of ethnic minorities reside, activity.