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This paper considers the position of the Chinese elite in both national and international contexts. I show that the Chinese elite has converged with the global elite in terms of their incomes, and that many senior Chinese executives are at least as well paid as their counterparts in rich countries. Their insertion into the global elite is further demonstrated by their increasing participation in the World Economic Forum. But this international convergence has been mirrored by national divergence: economic inequality has risen within China, extending the distance between elites and the rest of the population. I show that for top income groups, the relative cost of employing a median wage worker for their personal service has plummeted, increasing their entitlements over labor and thus their capacity to dominate their compatriots. This has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in the reliance of the elite on domestic workers, a traditional symbol of social inequality. Thus the convergence of Chinese elites with their international counterparts has gone hand in hand with both rising economic inequality and rising social inequality within China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic inequality in China has increased significantly over the past four decades, and I examined the cultural resources that Chinese people have deployed to frame this new inequality. Based on 75 interviews with Chinese people, I identified three framings of inequality: The meritocratic framing views inequality as the result of differences in effort, ability or contribution; the developmental framing emphasizes that because everyone is doing materially better than four decades ago, it does not matter that economic inequality has increased; and what I call the difference-order framing, which emphasizes that individuals are born into different families with different levels of resources; therefore, they cannot be equal, which is not unfair. As such, even though China was a much more economically equal society just a few decades ago, available cultural resources enable Chinese people to frame inequality in ways that justify, rather than problematize, the phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data (N = 1,600) collected in Urumchi in Xinjiang, China, this paper examines the Han-Uyghur gap in schooling and offers a nuanced account of educational stratification by ethnicity in urban China. Data analysis shows that Han Chinese are more likely than Uyghurs to receive schooling, and the ethnic variation persists when holding main background characteristics constant. However, the differences in schooling between Han and Uyghur men fade away when background characteristics are controlled for, whereas no similar patterns are found among women. Gender roles account for both ethnic parity in schooling between Han and Uyghur men and ethnic inequality in schooling between Han and Uyghur women, which underlies the overall Han-Uyghur gap in educational attainment in Ürümchi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Despite legislation and financial redistribution, unequal access to educational resources in China remains. • The government has failed to provide sufficient financial support to underdeveloped provinces. • In underdeveloped areas, financial capacity is lower, but educational need is higher. There is great inequality of educational resources between different provinces in China due to unbalanced economic development. Despite continued redistribution of financial resources by the central government in favor of poorer provinces, educational inequality remains. In this paper, we argue that focusing on educational resources is far from sufficient. Poorer provinces do not only suffer from a lower level of educational resources, but they also have more children to educate, i.e. a greater need for education. Combining and analyzing the data in the Sixth National Population Census of China and the official statistics on education spending and resources, we found that provincial-level variations in the child population and the child dependency ratio have made access to educational resources even more unequal given the unequal financial capacity at the provincial level. Poorer provinces face a higher child dependency ratio and have lower economic development, and these two factors jointly lead to limited educational resources. Apart from a much higher level of redistribution in favor of less developed provinces, encouraging more balanced distribution of teachers and more broadly promoting economic equality are essential to reduce inequality in educational resources in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]