ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN MARRIAGE & HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURE IN A CHINESE CITY

Marital behaviour and family institutions among minority nationalities are an understudied area in research on ethnicity in the People’s Republic of China (the PRC). Using a survey data set (n = 1992) collected from fifteen neighbourhoods in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province in China’s Northwest, in 2001, I compare patterns in marriage and household structure between the Han and Hui in urban China. The Han are the ethnic majority and the Hui the third largest ethnic minority group in the PRC. The first section of this paper briefly reviews two theoretical perspectives on family and marital behaviour, presents some basic information about the Hui, and describes existing studies of marriage and household structure among the Hui. The second section discusses sampling methods and data, compares the overall marital status of the Han and Hui respondents and their different patterns of courtship and mate selection, studies the duration of courtship and ages at first marriage among the Han and Hui respondents, and examines patterns of living arrangements and family sizes of these two ethnic groups. The final sectio