Patterns, mechanisms and nature of ethnic intermarriage in urban China, Kunming case, 1950--1996

This dissertation studies how the institutional restructuring and policy shifts during the past five decades have modified and altered the conditions for and hence patterns of intermarriage between ethnic minorities and the Han majority in the context of urban China. The analysis is primarily based on the one percent sample data of 1990 Chinese census and the marriage registration data in the early 1990s from Kunming, a multiethnic metropolis in the southwest of China. This study has the following findings:Ethnic intermarriages increased rapidly in Kunming in PRC, and by the early 1990s, ethnic intermarriage was prevalent among all minorities of ethnic groups and two genders and various class backgrounds. The highly positive market conditions for intermarriage were created by the institutions and policies. In the first place, the tightly controlled migration policies and the household registration system created near closed marriage market, which effectively cut off the connections between urban ethnic minorities and their ethnic folks in the rural and other areas. Next, the work unit system not only replaced the traditional ethnic economies, absorbing ethnic minorities into the mainstream economy, but also together with the public housing system creating highly ethnically mixed workplaces and neighborhoods. Besides, ethnic minority elites rose in the cities as a result of the preferential policies toward minorities. The declining SES gap between minorities and the Han majority also enhanced the possibility of intermarriage, for which status homogamy is the rule. However, the prevalence of marital assimilation did not lead to identity assimilation in the city; instead, children of minority-Han marriage overwhelmingly choose minority identity rather than that of the majority Han. A series of institutional factors are considered mostly responsible including the fixed ethnic categorization, the separation of ethnic status as a political status and as a way of daily life (culture), and the advantages of minority status given by the preferential policies. Key words. ethnic intermarriage, institutional change, interethnic contact opportunity, ethnic stratification, status homogamy, ethnic option, reversed assimilation, Kunming, China.

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