Contexts and youth livelihoods in minoritized communities in China
Emily Hannum, Professor of Sociology and Education
Associate Dean, School of Arts & Sciences
University of Pennsylvania
Associate Dean, School of Arts & Sciences
University of Pennsylvania
In his essay “Identity and its Consequences: Indigeneity and Filmmaking in the Sinosphere,” Professor Berry touches on the critical, complex history of classification and naming of ethnic groups, and speaks to pressing contestations and politicizations around the concept of indigeneity that continue to shape identities and filmmaking.[1] He helpfully contextualizes the work of emerging filmmakers as part of a relatively recent turn in market and technological conditions that has made filmmaking much more feasible than before for members of minoritized communities.
Several of the films featured here are by current or recent student filmmakers. To supplement Professor Berry’s thoughtful essay on the conditions leading to a new generation of films, I would like to comment on the economic and demographic contexts that are shaping opportunities and livelihoods of a new generation of youth in minoritized communities in China. Of course, officially recognized minority populations in China are incredibly diverse in terms of culture, language, and religion,[2] and they represent highly disparate historical circumstances of incorporation and contemporary socioeconomic, demographic, and political circumstances. The discussion below is largely about average circumstances among a recognized minority population—a group boundary that is real in its official designation by the State, but one that may have quite distinct import both across and within individual ethnic groups. With this important caveat in mind, I would like to highlight the ways in which geographies and inequalities intersect with population distribution to shape the opportunities of minoritized youth.
Geographies and inequalities
Three interrelated dimensions of geography—region, urbanicity, and topography—are importantly linked to economic livelihoods in China, for youth and for others in the population. For example, annual disposable income per capita in 2019 was 39,439 Yuan in eastern China, but only 23,986 Yuan—about 61 percent as high—in the west.[3] Figures for Beijing and Shanghai are about three and a half times those of Tibet,[4] for example, and Tibet and other western autonomous regions and provinces are heavily represented at the bottom of province-level units ordered by annual disposable per capita income[5] and a multi-dimensional living standards index.[6] When the same index is used to rank counties, it shows that the bottom 100 counties were concentrated in the west, with 32 percent in Tibet, 18 percent in Qinghai, 15 percent in Yunnan, 11 percent in Xinjiang, 9 percent in Sichuan, 6 percent in Guizhou, and 5 percent in Inner Mongolia. Shanxi and Gansu shared the final 2 percent.[7]
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Three interrelated dimensions of geography—region, urbanicity, and topography—are importantly linked to economic livelihoods in China, for youth and for others in the population. |
Beyond region, the urban-rural divide is also critically important context for youth livelihoods. Living standards in rural areas have improved dramatically in recent decades, as China has brought vast numbers of its population out of extreme poverty.[8] Yet, the income gap between rural and urban households is still large—in 2020, official estimates place the annual per capita disposable income of urban households in China at about two and a half times that of rural households. [9]
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in 2020, official estimates place the annual per capita disposable income of urban households in China at about two and a half times that of rural households |
Regional development gaps and the urban-rural divide are related. Within rural areas, poverty has been most entrenched in the west: in 2017, using the national rural poverty line, 54 percent of the rural poor population resided in the western region.[10] All counties recognized by the government as poverty-stricken in 2013 were located in western and central China.[11] Over 60 percent of the rural poor reside in officially-designated poverty-stricken counties. [12] In 2017, the rural poverty rate in Xinjiang was highest in the country, at 9.9 percent, and the next highest rates were in the western provinces or autonomous regions of Gansu, Guizhou, Tibet, and Yunnan, all of which had poverty rates above 7 percent.[13] In 2018, 1.47 million rural residents in eastern China, 5.97 million rural residents of central China, and 9.16 million rural residents of western China were living below the poverty line.[14]
Finally, topography is a key factor shaping livelihoods. Poverty is most severe in remote and mountainous areas, and entrenched poverty has been a target of long-standing policy efforts that have intensified in the most recent period.[15] A recent poverty alleviation campaign reduced official rural poverty headcounts from the numbers cited in the preceding paragraph for 2018 to an astonishing 0 by 2020[16] and delisted all remaining poverty-stricken counties.[17] For individuals in rural, remote, and mountainous areas, while growth and poverty reduction have ameliorated the most abject economic deprivations, high levels of regional and urban-rural economic inequality have created significant challenges of relative disadvantage.
Finally, topography is a key factor shaping livelihoods. Poverty is most severe in remote and mountainous areas, and entrenched poverty has been a target of long-standing policy efforts that have intensified in the most recent period.[15] A recent poverty alleviation campaign reduced official rural poverty headcounts from the numbers cited in the preceding paragraph for 2018 to an astonishing 0 by 2020[16] and delisted all remaining poverty-stricken counties.[17] For individuals in rural, remote, and mountainous areas, while growth and poverty reduction have ameliorated the most abject economic deprivations, high levels of regional and urban-rural economic inequality have created significant challenges of relative disadvantage.
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For individuals in rural, remote, and mountainous areas, while growth and poverty reduction have ameliorated the most abject economic deprivations, high levels of regional and urban-rural economic inequality have created significant challenges of relative disadvantage. |
Population distributions and youth opportunity
Between 2005 and 2015, even as child poverty rates declined, income inequality among children worsened.[18] Youth across China come to school from vastly different family economic circumstances,[19] which are linked to location. For example, estimates of child poverty among 0- to 17-year-olds from the China General Social Survey suggested that rural child poverty headcounts in 2015 were about 12 percent, compared to about 5 percent for urban youth.[20] These numbers represent an immense improvement from 2005, when corresponding figures were 34 percent for rural children and 13 percent for urban children, but they also represent a fairly constant ratio—the rural children’s figure was about two and a half times that of urban children at both time points. For children of the rural poor, the gaps in home resources compared to wealthier urban youth can be enormous.[21]
Patterns of population distribution also have implications for educational access. Educational access has risen across the board in China in recent decades but remains conditioned by geography.[22] For example, as of 2015, urban youth were more likely to be attending school than rural youth—90 percent of urban youth versus 83.9 percent of rural youth ages 10 to 19 were attending. While these figures show a continuing urban-rural gap, they also represent a great deal of improvement compared to 15 years earlier, when corresponding figures were 78.7 percent for urban youth and 71.2 percent for rural youth.[23]
Minority and non-minority youth are differently positioned to experience these disparities. Just over 40 percent of the Han population resides in rural areas, but this number is higher for most, though not all, officially recognized minority populations.[24] In the 2010 census, 71.4 percent of ethnic minority children ages 0 to 17 lived in rural areas, compared with only 53.4 percent of Han children.[25] Minority children disproportionately reside in western autonomous regions and provinces.[26] And a recent estimate based on the 2015 intercensal survey indicated that nearly half of all ethnic minority adolescents aged 10 to 19—45.4 percent—live in poor rural areas, counties officially-recognized as poverty-stricken, compared to 24 percent of the total adolescent population.[27]
Minority populations and educational access
Education is a key driver of economic mobility and livelihoods. Associations of minority status with residence in poorer regions in the west, rurality, and remoteness mean that despite absolute gains in access over time, minority youth in China as a group remain educationally vulnerable. As tallied in the 2015 mid-censal survey, a minority-majority gap persisted in attendance: 79.4 percent of minority youth ages 10 to 19 were currently attending school in 2015, compared to 87.5 percent of Han youth.[28] In 2015, the percent of adolescents aged 10 to 19 who did not receive or complete compulsory education among ethnic minority adolescents was more than four times that of Han Chinese (7.2 percent versus 1.7 percent). Yet, both metrics show substantial improvements in access since the year 2000.[30] A report based on the 2010 census indicated that minority youth attendance rates are lower at each age than the national average and drop off drastically at the senior secondary ages.[31] School attendance rates among ethnic minority children were 94.1 percent for those in official primary school ages (6 to 11), 92.7 percent for those in middle school ages (12 to 14), and only 68.2 percent for those in senior high school ages (15 to 17).[32] Among the minority population, there are large differences in attendance rates for urban and rural youth; these gaps are more evident as children get older.[33]
Beyond these phases, Clothey, Otkur and Morrison[34] argue that identities and expectations linked to both ethnicity and urbanicity/rurality condition the experience of transitions to university. More broadly, the educational experiences and concerns of urban-origin minority youth may not be at all well captured in the statistics commonly reported, given the numerical predominance of rural-origin youth and the policy- and research focus on this group.
Between 2005 and 2015, even as child poverty rates declined, income inequality among children worsened.[18] Youth across China come to school from vastly different family economic circumstances,[19] which are linked to location. For example, estimates of child poverty among 0- to 17-year-olds from the China General Social Survey suggested that rural child poverty headcounts in 2015 were about 12 percent, compared to about 5 percent for urban youth.[20] These numbers represent an immense improvement from 2005, when corresponding figures were 34 percent for rural children and 13 percent for urban children, but they also represent a fairly constant ratio—the rural children’s figure was about two and a half times that of urban children at both time points. For children of the rural poor, the gaps in home resources compared to wealthier urban youth can be enormous.[21]
Patterns of population distribution also have implications for educational access. Educational access has risen across the board in China in recent decades but remains conditioned by geography.[22] For example, as of 2015, urban youth were more likely to be attending school than rural youth—90 percent of urban youth versus 83.9 percent of rural youth ages 10 to 19 were attending. While these figures show a continuing urban-rural gap, they also represent a great deal of improvement compared to 15 years earlier, when corresponding figures were 78.7 percent for urban youth and 71.2 percent for rural youth.[23]
Minority and non-minority youth are differently positioned to experience these disparities. Just over 40 percent of the Han population resides in rural areas, but this number is higher for most, though not all, officially recognized minority populations.[24] In the 2010 census, 71.4 percent of ethnic minority children ages 0 to 17 lived in rural areas, compared with only 53.4 percent of Han children.[25] Minority children disproportionately reside in western autonomous regions and provinces.[26] And a recent estimate based on the 2015 intercensal survey indicated that nearly half of all ethnic minority adolescents aged 10 to 19—45.4 percent—live in poor rural areas, counties officially-recognized as poverty-stricken, compared to 24 percent of the total adolescent population.[27]
Minority populations and educational access
Education is a key driver of economic mobility and livelihoods. Associations of minority status with residence in poorer regions in the west, rurality, and remoteness mean that despite absolute gains in access over time, minority youth in China as a group remain educationally vulnerable. As tallied in the 2015 mid-censal survey, a minority-majority gap persisted in attendance: 79.4 percent of minority youth ages 10 to 19 were currently attending school in 2015, compared to 87.5 percent of Han youth.[28] In 2015, the percent of adolescents aged 10 to 19 who did not receive or complete compulsory education among ethnic minority adolescents was more than four times that of Han Chinese (7.2 percent versus 1.7 percent). Yet, both metrics show substantial improvements in access since the year 2000.[30] A report based on the 2010 census indicated that minority youth attendance rates are lower at each age than the national average and drop off drastically at the senior secondary ages.[31] School attendance rates among ethnic minority children were 94.1 percent for those in official primary school ages (6 to 11), 92.7 percent for those in middle school ages (12 to 14), and only 68.2 percent for those in senior high school ages (15 to 17).[32] Among the minority population, there are large differences in attendance rates for urban and rural youth; these gaps are more evident as children get older.[33]
Beyond these phases, Clothey, Otkur and Morrison[34] argue that identities and expectations linked to both ethnicity and urbanicity/rurality condition the experience of transitions to university. More broadly, the educational experiences and concerns of urban-origin minority youth may not be at all well captured in the statistics commonly reported, given the numerical predominance of rural-origin youth and the policy- and research focus on this group.
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Associations of minority status with residence in poorer regions in the west, rurality, and remoteness mean that despite absolute gains in access over time, minority youth in China as a group remain educationally vulnerable. |
Closing remarks
In short, as the country has developed, abject economic deprivations have eased and educational attainment has expanded for young minority populations across many parts of China. Yet, the story is also complicated. Enduring disparities linked to geographic marginality continue to shape youth opportunities and livelihoods for many minority youth in rural communities. High levels of economic inequality dividing households, regions, and urban and rural areas mean that minority youth from poorer regions face a very uneven starting point when they enter a highly competitive educational system. Among minority youth, across ethnic groups, differences in language, culture, religion, overall socioeconomic status, and circumstances of incorporation have long conditioned receptivity to national institutions[35] and condition exposure to intensive assimilationism in recent years.[36] Finally, within and across groups, the circumstances and experiences of minority youth in cities and more developed regions—those with longstanding roots or recent arrivals as part of China’s waves of rural-to-urban labor migration[37]—are very different from those in remote rural areas and are not yet well understood.
I would like to close with one more piece of demographic context. The fraction of all youth who are members of recognized minority groups has risen over time, from just 6.7 percent in the 1982 census to 11.0 percent in the 2015 mid-censal survey.[38] This change has occurred while the minority youth population in China is falling in absolute terms but is doing so more slowly than the Han youth population.[39] As China faces a rapidly aging population, supporting all members of the next generation becomes even more critical for the country’s future.
In short, as the country has developed, abject economic deprivations have eased and educational attainment has expanded for young minority populations across many parts of China. Yet, the story is also complicated. Enduring disparities linked to geographic marginality continue to shape youth opportunities and livelihoods for many minority youth in rural communities. High levels of economic inequality dividing households, regions, and urban and rural areas mean that minority youth from poorer regions face a very uneven starting point when they enter a highly competitive educational system. Among minority youth, across ethnic groups, differences in language, culture, religion, overall socioeconomic status, and circumstances of incorporation have long conditioned receptivity to national institutions[35] and condition exposure to intensive assimilationism in recent years.[36] Finally, within and across groups, the circumstances and experiences of minority youth in cities and more developed regions—those with longstanding roots or recent arrivals as part of China’s waves of rural-to-urban labor migration[37]—are very different from those in remote rural areas and are not yet well understood.
I would like to close with one more piece of demographic context. The fraction of all youth who are members of recognized minority groups has risen over time, from just 6.7 percent in the 1982 census to 11.0 percent in the 2015 mid-censal survey.[38] This change has occurred while the minority youth population in China is falling in absolute terms but is doing so more slowly than the Han youth population.[39] As China faces a rapidly aging population, supporting all members of the next generation becomes even more critical for the country’s future.
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High levels of economic inequality dividing households, regions, and urban and rural areas mean that minority youth from poorer regions face a very uneven starting point when they enter a highly competitive educational system. |
notes
[1] Chris Berry, “Identity and Its Consequences: Indigeneity and Filmmaking in the Sinosphere,” Virtual Film Exhibition, The Contest over “Indigeneity”: Film and Ethnography in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, 2021, https://www.filmandethnography.org/identity-and-its-consequences.html
[2] Across China, linguistic groups span the Sino-Tibetan, Indo-European, Austro-Asiatic, and Altaic language families. See Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Chinese Linguistic Groups 1990, vol. 2009, March 13, 1990.
[3] The Northeast and Central regions fall in between. Statista, “Regional Disparities in China,” Statistical report, Statista Dossier (New York: Statista, 2020), 2, http://www.statista.com/study/82383/regional-disparities-in-china/.
[4] Calculations based on Statista, 34.
[5] Statements based on data in Statista, 34.
[6] United Nations Development Programme-China, “The Living Standards Dimension of the Human Development Index: Measuring Poverty with Big Data in China” (Beijing: United Nations Development Programme China, October 18, 2016), 45, https://www.cn.undp.org/content/china/en/home/library/poverty/the-living-standards-dimension-of-the-human-development-index--m.html.
[7]United Nations Development Programme-China, 43.
[8] See poverty trends in Figure 2.10 in National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, “Children in China: An Atlas of Social Indicators 2018 (中国儿童发展指标图集 2018)” (Beijing: UNICEF, China, 2018), 37, https://www.unicef.cn/en/atlas-2018-en. The poverty threshold in this source is 2,300 Yuan per person per year at 2010 prices.
[9] C. Textor, “Annual per Capita Disposable Income of Rural and Urban Households in China from 1990 to 2020 (in Yuan),” Statistics (New York: Statista, 2021), 2, http://www.statista.com/statistics/259451/annual-per-capita-disposable-income-of-rural-and-urban-households-in-china/.
[10] National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, “Children in China: An Atlas of Social Indicators 2018 (中国儿童发展指标图集 2018),” 37.
[11] Sirui Zhu, “A Story of Struggle and Success: China’s 832 Poorest Counties,” News, CGTN, 2021, https://news.cgtn.com/event/2020/China-s-battle-against-poverty/index.html.
[12] National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, “Children in China: An Atlas of Social Indicators 2018 (中国儿童发展指标图集 2018),” 38.
[13] National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, 37.
[14] The poverty threshold in this source is 2,300 yuan per person per year (at 2010 constant prices). Statista, “Regional Disparities in China,” 3, 45.
[15] Yansui Liu, Jilai Liu, and Yang Zhou, “Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Rural Poverty in China and Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategies,” Journal of Rural Studies 52 (May 2017): 66–75, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.04.002; World Bank, “China - From Poor Areas to Poor People : China’s Evolving Poverty Reduction Agenda - An Assessment of Poverty and Inequality in China,” Core Diagnostic Report (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, March 1, 2009), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/3033. See Arthur Holcombe, “Can China Reduce Entrenched Poverty in Remote Ethnic Minority Regions? Lessons from Successful Poverty Alleviation in Tibetan Areas of China during 1998-2016,” Ash Center Policy Briefs Series, June 2017, 8–9, https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42372455 for a discussion of the role of topography and other issues shaping the poverty alleviation landscape in Tibet.
[16] Statista, “Regional Disparities in China,” 3.
[17] Zhu, “A Story of Struggle and Success.”
[18] Zuobao Wang and Xiaoou Man, “Child Income Poverty in China from 2005 to 2015: The Application and Decomposition of the FGT Indexes,” Children and Youth Services Review 101 (June 2019): 72, 76, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.03.046. This source also uses the equivalent of 2300 Yuan at 2010 prices as a threshold, but considers a child as poor if their equivalised household income is below the poverty line. The line is adjusted upward for urban children.
[19] Natalie A.E. Young and Emily C. Hannum, “Childhood Inequality in China: Evidence from Recent Survey Data (2012–2014),” The China Quarterly 236 (December 2018): 1063–87, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741018001303.
[20] Wang and Man, “Child Income Poverty in China from 2005 to 2015,” 77.
[21] For a discussion, see Peggy A. Kong, Emily Hannum, and Gerard A. Postiglione, eds., Rural Education in China’s Social Transition, Education and Society in China (London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315545868.
[22] For an overview, see National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, “Children in China: An Atlas of Social Indicators 2018 (中国儿童发展指标图集 2018),” 108.
[23] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, “Population Status of Adolescents in China in 2015: Facts and Figures” (Beijing: UNICEF China and UNFPA China, 2018), 7, https://www.unicef.cn/en/reports/population-status-adolescents-china-2015.
[24] See Table 1.2 in Rongxing Guo, “Population Growth and Structural Change,” in China Ethnic Statistical Yearbook 2020, by Rongxing Guo (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020), 6–7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49024-9_1.
[25] United Nations Children’s Fund China, “Ethnic Minority Children in China,” Fact Sheet (Bejing: United Nations Children’s Fund China, 2016), 2, https://www.unicef.cn/en/reports/ethnic-minority-children-china.
[26] United Nations Children’s Fund China, 3.
[27] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, “Population Status of Adolescents in China in 2015: Facts and Figures,” 4.
[28] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, 7.
[29] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, 7.
[30] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, 7.
[31] United Nations Children’s Fund China, “Ethnic Minority Children in China,” 4.
[32] United Nations Children’s Fund China, 4.
[33] United Nations Children’s Fund China, 4.
[34] Rebecca Clothey, Arafat Otkur, and Jeaná Morrison, “Education from the Periphery: Intersectionality and Rural Uyghur Students in Higher Education in China,” Australian and International Journal of Rural Education 28, no. 2 (July 2018): 1d+, https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.267295677515465.
[35] For an older discussion of this issue, see a comparison of the Dai and Naxi responses to educational institutions in Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (University of Washington Press, 1999), http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbtzm5v.
[36] For a discussion of recent policy, see “James Leibold on China’s Assimilationist Turn in Xi Jinping’s China,” Asia Experts Forum (blog), March 18, 2021, http://asiaexpertsforum.org/james-leibold-chinas-assimilationist-turn-xi-jinpings-china/.
[37] For a recent study of minority students in urban Lanzhou, see Tao Wang, “Urban Schooling and Social Integration of Ethnic Migrant Students in China,” Education and Urban Society, September 4, 2020, 001312452095516, https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124520955161; for a recent study of young minority migrant workers, see Tzu-kai Liu, “Minority Youth, Mobile Phones and Language Use: Wa Migrant Workers’ Engagements with Networked Sociality and Mobile Communication in Urban China,” Asian Ethnicity 16, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 334–52, https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2015.1015255.
[38] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, “Population Status of Adolescents in China in 2015: Facts and Figures,” 3–4.
[39] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, 3–4.
[2] Across China, linguistic groups span the Sino-Tibetan, Indo-European, Austro-Asiatic, and Altaic language families. See Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Chinese Linguistic Groups 1990, vol. 2009, March 13, 1990.
[3] The Northeast and Central regions fall in between. Statista, “Regional Disparities in China,” Statistical report, Statista Dossier (New York: Statista, 2020), 2, http://www.statista.com/study/82383/regional-disparities-in-china/.
[4] Calculations based on Statista, 34.
[5] Statements based on data in Statista, 34.
[6] United Nations Development Programme-China, “The Living Standards Dimension of the Human Development Index: Measuring Poverty with Big Data in China” (Beijing: United Nations Development Programme China, October 18, 2016), 45, https://www.cn.undp.org/content/china/en/home/library/poverty/the-living-standards-dimension-of-the-human-development-index--m.html.
[7]United Nations Development Programme-China, 43.
[8] See poverty trends in Figure 2.10 in National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, “Children in China: An Atlas of Social Indicators 2018 (中国儿童发展指标图集 2018)” (Beijing: UNICEF, China, 2018), 37, https://www.unicef.cn/en/atlas-2018-en. The poverty threshold in this source is 2,300 Yuan per person per year at 2010 prices.
[9] C. Textor, “Annual per Capita Disposable Income of Rural and Urban Households in China from 1990 to 2020 (in Yuan),” Statistics (New York: Statista, 2021), 2, http://www.statista.com/statistics/259451/annual-per-capita-disposable-income-of-rural-and-urban-households-in-china/.
[10] National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, “Children in China: An Atlas of Social Indicators 2018 (中国儿童发展指标图集 2018),” 37.
[11] Sirui Zhu, “A Story of Struggle and Success: China’s 832 Poorest Counties,” News, CGTN, 2021, https://news.cgtn.com/event/2020/China-s-battle-against-poverty/index.html.
[12] National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, “Children in China: An Atlas of Social Indicators 2018 (中国儿童发展指标图集 2018),” 38.
[13] National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, 37.
[14] The poverty threshold in this source is 2,300 yuan per person per year (at 2010 constant prices). Statista, “Regional Disparities in China,” 3, 45.
[15] Yansui Liu, Jilai Liu, and Yang Zhou, “Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Rural Poverty in China and Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategies,” Journal of Rural Studies 52 (May 2017): 66–75, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.04.002; World Bank, “China - From Poor Areas to Poor People : China’s Evolving Poverty Reduction Agenda - An Assessment of Poverty and Inequality in China,” Core Diagnostic Report (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, March 1, 2009), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/3033. See Arthur Holcombe, “Can China Reduce Entrenched Poverty in Remote Ethnic Minority Regions? Lessons from Successful Poverty Alleviation in Tibetan Areas of China during 1998-2016,” Ash Center Policy Briefs Series, June 2017, 8–9, https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42372455 for a discussion of the role of topography and other issues shaping the poverty alleviation landscape in Tibet.
[16] Statista, “Regional Disparities in China,” 3.
[17] Zhu, “A Story of Struggle and Success.”
[18] Zuobao Wang and Xiaoou Man, “Child Income Poverty in China from 2005 to 2015: The Application and Decomposition of the FGT Indexes,” Children and Youth Services Review 101 (June 2019): 72, 76, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.03.046. This source also uses the equivalent of 2300 Yuan at 2010 prices as a threshold, but considers a child as poor if their equivalised household income is below the poverty line. The line is adjusted upward for urban children.
[19] Natalie A.E. Young and Emily C. Hannum, “Childhood Inequality in China: Evidence from Recent Survey Data (2012–2014),” The China Quarterly 236 (December 2018): 1063–87, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741018001303.
[20] Wang and Man, “Child Income Poverty in China from 2005 to 2015,” 77.
[21] For a discussion, see Peggy A. Kong, Emily Hannum, and Gerard A. Postiglione, eds., Rural Education in China’s Social Transition, Education and Society in China (London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315545868.
[22] For an overview, see National Working Committee on Children and Women (NWCCW), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and UNICEF, “Children in China: An Atlas of Social Indicators 2018 (中国儿童发展指标图集 2018),” 108.
[23] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, “Population Status of Adolescents in China in 2015: Facts and Figures” (Beijing: UNICEF China and UNFPA China, 2018), 7, https://www.unicef.cn/en/reports/population-status-adolescents-china-2015.
[24] See Table 1.2 in Rongxing Guo, “Population Growth and Structural Change,” in China Ethnic Statistical Yearbook 2020, by Rongxing Guo (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020), 6–7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49024-9_1.
[25] United Nations Children’s Fund China, “Ethnic Minority Children in China,” Fact Sheet (Bejing: United Nations Children’s Fund China, 2016), 2, https://www.unicef.cn/en/reports/ethnic-minority-children-china.
[26] United Nations Children’s Fund China, 3.
[27] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, “Population Status of Adolescents in China in 2015: Facts and Figures,” 4.
[28] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, 7.
[29] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, 7.
[30] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, 7.
[31] United Nations Children’s Fund China, “Ethnic Minority Children in China,” 4.
[32] United Nations Children’s Fund China, 4.
[33] United Nations Children’s Fund China, 4.
[34] Rebecca Clothey, Arafat Otkur, and Jeaná Morrison, “Education from the Periphery: Intersectionality and Rural Uyghur Students in Higher Education in China,” Australian and International Journal of Rural Education 28, no. 2 (July 2018): 1d+, https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.267295677515465.
[35] For an older discussion of this issue, see a comparison of the Dai and Naxi responses to educational institutions in Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (University of Washington Press, 1999), http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbtzm5v.
[36] For a discussion of recent policy, see “James Leibold on China’s Assimilationist Turn in Xi Jinping’s China,” Asia Experts Forum (blog), March 18, 2021, http://asiaexpertsforum.org/james-leibold-chinas-assimilationist-turn-xi-jinpings-china/.
[37] For a recent study of minority students in urban Lanzhou, see Tao Wang, “Urban Schooling and Social Integration of Ethnic Migrant Students in China,” Education and Urban Society, September 4, 2020, 001312452095516, https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124520955161; for a recent study of young minority migrant workers, see Tzu-kai Liu, “Minority Youth, Mobile Phones and Language Use: Wa Migrant Workers’ Engagements with Networked Sociality and Mobile Communication in Urban China,” Asian Ethnicity 16, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 334–52, https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2015.1015255.
[38] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, “Population Status of Adolescents in China in 2015: Facts and Figures,” 3–4.
[39] United Nations Children’s Fund China and United Nations Family Planning Association China, 3–4.
