Studies using surnames to quantify social mobility, diversity and cultural/genetic distance in China's history

This paper estimates the rate of intergenerational social mobility of status in Late Imperial, Republican and Communist China by examining the changing social status of originally elite surnames over time. It finds much lower rates of mobility in all eras than previous studies have suggested, though there is some increase in mobility in the Republican and Communist eras. The authors argue it more likely reflects mainly a systematic tendency of conventional mobility studies to overestimate rates of social mobility of status, where status is partially measured by income, wealth and education at individual or household level.

Taiping rebellion as a migration cultural shock: The failure of public primary schooling in the Lower Yangzi of the Republican Era (1900-1949)
This paper, using DID methods, explores the differential impact of the Taiping rebellion (1851-1864) and consequent mass migration on the provision of new public schooling in the early 20th century lower Yangzi region of China. It finds that places were less successful in financing primary public or semi-public schooling if they experienced a greater migration cultural shock by immigrants, defined as the difference between surname distribution of the native population before the rebellion and that of the population after the rebellion. This result is robust to controlling for the compositional effect of immigrants who entails different level of human capital, and other socio-economic and geographic factors. Besides, if finds that the differential effect of diversity shock faded away after 1920s, indicating either migrants had blended in or the provincial and state governments made transfers of funds to the places with greater adverse shock.