Educational credentials, elite dualism, and elite stratification in China

Despite the general consensus on the importance of university degrees in le adership selection, researchers in elite studies have not focused on how ed ucation differentiates and stratifies elites. Many important questions rema in unanswered, for example: Are the returns to education linear in differen t political institutions? Is the payoff to education allocated among differ ent dimensions of educational attainment? Using a 1994 data set on top Chin ese leaders, I show different effects of educational credentials on elite s tratification in two major bureaucratic structures in China. I conclude wit h a discussion of the nature of the political elite in China and the implic ations of my study for future research on educational credentialism and eli te stratification.