Ethnic Income Inequality Research Articles

Income inequality in Guyana: Class or ethnicity? New evidence from survey data

This paper utilises recent survey data to estimate income inequality in Guyana between 1990–2021. It finds that class-based inequality exceeds ethnic income inequality, and the latter is more pronounced in the top 10 percent of the population. The over-representation of Indo- and Indigenous-Guyanese in the top decile increases class inequality within these groups because Afro- and Mixed-Guyanese are over-represented in the bottom 90 percent of the population. Also, the evidence shows that electoral turnover in 2015 increased the dominance of Indo-Guyanese in the top 10 percent relative to other groups. Moreover, the paper demonstrates that fiscal policy has more explanatory power than monetary policy and structural reforms in explaining the dynamics of income inequality. Overall, the evidence indicates that intra-class competition for ethnic dominance of the top decile may account for inter-ethnic conflict as politicians invest in ethnic prejudice to weaken inter-class competition and strengthen the intra-class contest.

Investigating the role of multilevel social capital in ethnic income inequality in the Chinese labour market

This study examines to what extent individual- and county-level social capital respectively and jointly explain the Chinese ethnic income inequality. Using two waves of the Chinese General Social Survey data, social capital is operationalised into extensivity, upper reachability, mean prestige, and range via the position generator. Results show that social capital is unevenly distributed along the ethnic line in China, minorities are in disadvantaged position in accessing social capital, especially the number of occupation accessed and mean occupational prestige, compared with Han. When cross-level interactions are taken into account, with the increase of county-level social capital, its positive effect on minorities’ income attenuates while it become stronger for Han’s income. The differential returns of social capital on income between minorities and Han may be attributable to the mean prestige of their accessed position networks. Finally, the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis uncovers that when all variables are controlled for, there is still approximately 24 % of the income gap between minorities and Han remained unexplained, indicating the severe ethnic wage penalty minorities are facing in the Chinese labour market.

The role of socio-historic factors and income inequality in global innovation

ABSTRACT In order to better understand why some nations are more innovative than others, this paper considers the influence of socio-historic dimensions of colonialism and income inequality. Using data from 72 nations over the years 1997–2018, we find that ethnic income inequality (along with income inequality) and ethnolinguistic fractionalization of the population reduced the pace of innovation. These findings underscore the role of income distribution and other social factors in facilitating innovation. Furthermore, nations with a colonial past were more innovative, ceteris paribus, whereas nations with long histories (longevity) were no different from others. Finally, we found some support for presidential democracies fostering more innovation.

Dimensions of Ethnic Diversity and Underground Economic Activity: Cross-country Evidence

Cultural and ethnic factors crucially affect economic agents’ propensities toward law-abiding behavior and operating in the underground economy is an important, widely prevalent, aspect. However, there are many dimensions of ethnic diversity, and the relative influences of each on underground behavior are not well articulated. This article uniquely considers the effects of five dimensions of ethnic/cultural diversity, including ethnic income inequality, ethnic–linguistic fragmentation, cultural fragmentation, ethnolinguistic polarization, and ethnic–linguistic segregation, on the international shadow economy. Placing the empirical analysis in the context of the empirical determinants of the shadow economy, results show income inequality across ethnic groups increases underground activity across different modeling variations, while the effects of the other dimensions are statistically insignificant. This unique finding underscores the notion that not all dimensions of ethnic diversity are alike when it comes to their influences on the informal sector.

The Economic Returns of Social Capital: Comparing Han Chinese and Ethnic Minorities in China

This paper investigates and compares the effect of social capital on the earnings of Han Chinese and ethnic minorities in China. Previous studies have primarily focused on education differentials as the key determinant of Chinese ethnic income inequality. The notion that social capital helps improve labour market engagement and performance has long been prevalent in the literature, however, it has rarely been examined within the Chinese ethnic context. Using a nationally representative dataset, the main findings of this study suggest that social capital only exerts a positive effect on the income of Han Chinese, while it fails to generate economic returns for ethnic minorities. This finding is robust when the reserved causality between social capital and income is accounted for by using an instrumental variable estimation. Educational level and Mandarin fluency both positively influence the income of Han and ethnic minorities, but the effect of education is attenuated when one’s social capital is stronger. This study has important implications for Chinese policymakers seeking to address income inequality and ethnic stratification in China.

The geography of natural resources, ethnic inequality and civil conflicts

We study whether the spatial distribution of natural resources across different ethnic groups within countries causes spatial inequality and the incidence of armed conflict. By providing a theoretical rent-seeking model and analysing a set of geo-coded data for mines, night-time light emissions, local populations and ethnic homelands, we show that the spatial distribution of resources is a major driving factor of ethnic income inequality. Moreover, a spatially unequal distribution of natural resources induces rent-seeking behaviour and thus increases the risk of civil conflicts. Consequently, we extend the perspective of the resource curse to explain cross-country differences in income inequality and the onset of civil conflicts.

Ethnic Group Inequality, Partisan Networks, and Political Clientelism

How do ethnic group divisions affect parties’ linkage strategies? The provision of private or local club goods favoring co-ethnics by politicians has been well documented in the literature. However, whether clientelism tends to be more widespread in ethnically highly fragmented societies has not been systematically examined. Utilizing a dataset that includes information on more than 450 parties in eighty competitive party systems, we show that the mere presence of multiple ethnic groups does not lead to more clientelistic exchange. Nevertheless, in countries characterized by high levels of economic inequality between politically relevant ethnic groups, parties are more likely to rely on clientelistic strategies to attract votes. In addition, this positive relationship between ethnic income inequality and clientelism is contingent on parties’ ties to ethnic social networks. Specifically, in ethnically unequal societies, parties that can rely on existing ethnic organizations particularly engage in clientelistic modes of electoral mobilization.

Impacts of Migration and Remittances on Ethnic Income Inequality in Rural China

Summary Migration is often viewed as the best option for poor rural households to exit out of poverty, although the distributional effects of migrants’ remittances tend to be ambiguous in the literature. Given that increasing income inequality is a major concern and policy issue, this paper examines the impacts of migration and migrants’ remittances on income inequality in China’s rural minority areas using recent proprietary household data. Treating migrants’ remittances as a potential substitute for income, the results reveal that migration significantly boosts income for all ethnic groups, although the returns to ethnic minority households tend to be less than for Han households. Decomposition analyses further reveal that migration increases inequality between ethnic groups despite reducing spatial inequality. These countervailing effects imply that the continual transfer of rural–urban migrants will likely lead to spatial convergence despite reinforcing ethnic inequalities in rural minority areas. Importantly, the percentage contribution of ethnic inequality to total inequality is larger than that of spatial inequality across sampled rural locations, thus highlighting the fact that the ethnic dimension is an important, yet often overlooked component of inequality in China.

The Geography of Natural Resources, Ethnic Inequality and Development

We study whether the spatial distribution of natural resources across different ethnic groups within countries impede spatial inequality, national economic performance, and the incidence of armed conflict. By providing a theoretical rent-seeking model and analysing a set of geocoded data for mines, night-time light emissions, local populations and ethnic homelands, we show that the distribution of resources is a major driving factor of ethnic income inequality and, thus, induces rent-seeking behaviour. Consequently, we extend the perspective of the resource curse to explain cross-country differences in economic performance and the onset of civil conflicts. We show that the inequality in the spatial distribution of resource endowments within countries drives the curse of natural resources, not the resources per se.

Impacts of Migration and Remittances on Ethnic Income Inequality in Rural China

This paper examines the impacts of migration and migrants’ remittances on household income in China’s rural minority areas using recent proprietary household data. Treating migrants’ remittances as a potential substitute for income, the results reveal that migration significantly boosts income for all ethnic groups, although the returns to ethnic minority households tend to be less than for Han households. Decomposition analyses further reveal that migration increases inequality between ethnic groups despite reducing spatial inequality, and that the percentage contribution of ethnic inequality to total inequality is larger than that of spatial inequality across sampled rural locations.

Gender roles and ethnic income inequality in Ürümchi

This paper examines the effect of gender roles on earnings differentials between Han Chinese and Uyghurs in Ürümchi, China, using survey data (N = 1,600) from Ürümchi in 2005. It finds sizeable earnings differentials between Han Chinese and Uyghurs. However, the differences in income between Uyghur men and Han men fade away when socioeconomic variables are controlled for. No similar patterns are found among women. Earnings differentials between Uyghur women and Han women and between Uyghurs and Han Chinese disappear after the measures for family responsibilities are introduced into the earnings equation. The differences in socioeconomic status and family responsibilities between Uyghur women and Han women underlie the aggregate income inequality between Uyghurs and Han Chinese.

The economic marginality of ethnic minorities: an analysis of ethnic income inequality in Singapore

This paper examines ethnic income inequality in Singapore from the perspectives of labour‐market segmentation and human capital. The findings of this study show that neither perspective is useful in explaining ethnic income inequality in Singapore. Further, the analysis shows that educational differences among the Chinese, Indians and Malays account for very little of the income gap. Much of the income difference is due to discrimination. The source of this discrimination lies in the segregation of ethnic minorities in lower‐paying jobs and occupations across all industries, reflecting Chinese domination in the economic and political spheres.

The Ethnic Minority‐Majority Income Gap in Rural China during Transition

The Ethnic Minority‐Majority Income Gap in Rural China during Transition