We present findings from historical microdata that suggest former rural elites effectively preserved their socio-economic advantages into the early People's Republic of China (PRC, circa 1949–1965) by exploiting urban–rural differences in government policies. In particular, former rural elites were three to four times more likely than poor peasants to move to a nearby town, and this urbanization was highly associated with socio-economic privileges in a rapidly developing economy, including both income and educational opportunities. We also find evidence that after 1949, former rural elites who did urbanize were more likely than their poor peasant counterparts to find industrial jobs.

The non-take-up of public services has the potential to undermine civil rights and deepen social inequality. Looking at the case of the Youth Community College Programme in China, an innovation in governance to facilitate community integration of the migrant population by providing free education, this study finds that the targeted disadvantaged groups are systematically excluded due to the disproportionate imposition of various administrative burdens on them. We propose that an interaction mechanism – which we term “selective affinity” – between the policy process and individuals’ human capital leads to this unintended outcome. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the causal mechanisms underlying vulnerable people's non-take-up of public services, while highlighting an example of dysfunctional state–society interaction and a mechanism for the reproduction of social inequality under authoritarianism in China.

The social volcano thesis states that the rising inequality in China threatens regime stability. This idea, although widely held in the media and in academia, is backed by little positive evidence but by much negative evidence. Two primary pieces of negative evidence are that the Chinese people trust the central government and that they are highly tolerant of inequality. This paper discusses the shortcomings of the negative evidence and re-examines the thesis in a rigorous and direct way. Our multilevel analysis shows that provincial inequality has negative effects on individuals’ trust in the local government but not in the central government, and this negative effect holds for both the rich and the poor. Because distrust in the local government implies distrust in the central government, we conclude that a social volcano exists.

It has been well established that better educated individuals enjoy better health and longevity. In theory, the educational gradients in health could be flattening if diminishing returns to improved average education levels and the influence of earlier population health interventions outweigh the gradient-steepening effects of new medical and health technologies. This paper documents how the gradients are evolving in China, a rapidly developing country, about which little is known on this topic. Based on recent mortality data and nationally representative health surveys, we find large and, in some cases, steepening educational gradients. We also find that the gradients vary by cohort, gender and region. Further, we find that the gradients can only partially be accounted for by economic factors. These patterns highlight the double disadvantage of those with low education, and suggest the importance of policy interventions that foster both aspects of human capital for them.

Inequalities in college access are a major concern for policymakers in both developed and developing countries. Policymakers in China have largely tried to address these inequalities by helping disadvantaged students successfully transition from high school to college. However, they have paid less attention to the possibility that inequalities in college access may also arise earlier in the pathway to college. The purpose of this paper is to understand where inequalities emerge along the pathway to college in China, focusing on three major milestones after junior high. By analysing administrative data on over 300,000 students from one region of China, we find that the largest inequalities in college access emerge at the first post-compulsory milestone along the pathway to college: when students transition from junior high to high school. In particular, only 60 per cent of students from poor counties take the high school entrance exam (compared to nearly 100 per cent of students from non-poor counties). Furthermore, students from poor counties are about one and a half times less likely to attend academic high school and elite academic high school than students from non-poor counties.

In the 1990s, rural youth from poor counties in China had limited access to college. After mass college expansion started in 1998, however, it was unclear whether rural youth from poor counties would gain greater access. The aim of this paper is to examine the gap in college and elite college access between rural youth from poor counties and other students after expansion. We estimate the gaps in access by using data on all students who took the college entrance exam in 2003. Our results show that gaps in access remained high even after expansion. Rural youth from poor counties were seven and 11 times less likely to access any college and elite Project 211 colleges than urban youth, respectively. Much larger gaps existed for disadvantaged subgroups (female or ethnic minority) of rural youth from poor counties. We also find that the gaps in college access were mainly driven by rural–urban differences rather than differences between poor and non-poor counties within rural or urban areas.

In this commentary on the research note by Wang Xiaobing, Chengfang Liu, Linxiu Zhang, Yaojiang Shi and Scott Rozelle, “College is a rich, Han, urban, male club: research notes from a census survey of four tier one colleges in China,” I address several caveats in using the relative disparity index in assessing the extent of inequality in access to higher education. Based on these discussions, I point out the potential limitations existing in the empirical study of Wang and colleagues, and reassess the extent of disparity in college education opportunities in contemporary China using data from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey. Although the descriptive patterns consolidate the study of Wang and colleagues, only household registration status is significantly associated with the likelihood of attending college. These findings indicate that disparities per gender, economic status, and ethnicity based on a limited number of colleges are likely to be subject to sampling errors. Finally, no interaction effects between socio-demographic factors are detected. I offer some reflections on the disproportionality approach in the research of education inequality.

Economic growth over the past three decades has greatly improved the nutrition and living standards of people in China. However, increasingly, the Chinese are becoming heavier. As many as a quarter of Chinese school-age urban boys are overweight or obese, yet a third of Chinese children remain underweight. Drawing on six national surveys of children's health conducted since 1979, the article reports on trends in nutritional status and regional disparities. It shows that the drivers behind the increase in mean body mass and in nutritional inequality are associated with rising household incomes and associated inequalities between provinces.