Ethnic identity change in the people's republic of China: An explanation using data from the 1982 and 1990 census enumerations

This article seeks to account for the rapid rise in the number of people who identify as minorities in the People's Republic of China. A comparison of the 1982 and 1990 census enumerations reveals that 24 million more individuals identified themselves as members of a minority group in 1990. Estimates indicate that fertility trends would account for an increase of only ten million during this eight year period. Two interacting factors, it is argued, account for the rapid shift in ethnic identity that occurred between 1982 and 1990 in the PRC: government policy and minority group characteristics. Government policy provided the incentive for change in ethnic identification by increasing the benefits available to minority citizens. Only those individuals associated with minority groups that had previously identified and were largely assimilated with the dominant group (in terms of residence, education, and level of economic development) could renew their claims for minority status. This argument is substantiated by a statistical test using county‐level data from the 1982 and 1990 censuses, a test that supports two hypotheses: first, changes in ethnic identity covary with the presence or absence of political incentives; secondly, ethnic identity changes covary with the degree of ethnic assimilation.