Ethnic Inequality and Forced Displacement

We study how inequality shapes victimization in ethnic conflicts. Our case study of a recent conflict in Kyrgyzstan documents how communities with large ethnic inequalities in education experienced intense displacement of their habitants. We first demonstrate that the correlation of ethnic inequalities and conflict intensity at the community level is robust against alternative drivers of conflict such as polarization or segregation. We then identify who precisely in the joint distribution of education and ethnicity is displaced by the conflict. Our findings suggest that horizontal andvertical inequality can drive victimisation in different ways for different people. For instance, socioeconomic advantage compared within ethnicity increased individual probabilities to be displaced, and decreased probabilities compared to the other ethnicity.