SPATIAL SEGREGATION AND SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION OF THE MINORITY NATIONALITIES FROM THE HAN MAJORITY IN THE PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA

One of sociological human ecology's classic hypotheses posits the exis tence of a positive relationship between social status and residence. The more similar the social characteristics of two populations, the gr eater their degree of residential propinquity. This study examines tha t hypothesis with data for the Han majority and each of the fifty-five minority nationalities enumerated in the 1982 Census of the People's Republic of China. We find support for the hypothesis when we use a se gregation measure that reflects the degree of unevenness of the reside ntial distribution of a minority population from the Han. The paper al so addresses the implications of these findings for the social and eco nomic development of the Chinese minorities.