fraction 0.50 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 Age 6-13 at year of closure fraction 0.96
0.46 0.12 0.00 0.00 Currently enrolled fraction 0.90 0.55 0.11 0.02 0.01 Years
of education 5.47 9.12 9.68 8.60 8.01 Strong spoken Mandarin fraction 0.19
0.38 0.34 0.26 0.23 Strong written Mandarin fraction 0.14 0.32 0.27 0.22 0.22
Observations 175 309 468 445 183 Panel B: Han in closure villages Male
fraction 0.42 0.52 0.55 0.55 0.51 Age 6-9 at year of closure fraction 0.58
0.10 0.04 0.00 0.00 Age 6-13 at year of closure fraction 0.94 0.57 0.21 0.01
0.00 Currently enrolled fraction 0.88 0.59 0.21 0.00 0.00 Years of education
6.04 10.17 11.00 9.23 8.25 Strong spoken Mandarin fraction 0.29 0.54 0.56 0.45
0.46 Strong written Mandarin fraction 0.27 0.48 0.49 0.36 0.27 Observations
139 246 342 233 158 Panel C: Minority in non-closure villages Male fraction
0.53 0.51 0.52 0.55 0.55 Currently enrolled fraction 0.93 0.52 0.13 0.01 0.00
Years of education 5.41 9.05 9.39 8.24 7.22 Strong spoken Mandarin fraction
0.16 0.26 0.27 0.21 0.16 Strong written Mandarin fraction 0.14 0.27 0.22 0.14
0.11 Observations 1133 1285 1619 1230 1026 Panel D: Han in non-closure
villages Male fraction 0.50 0.55 0.50 0.53 0.53 Currently enrolled fraction
0.95 0.66 0.21 0.03 0.01 Years of education 5.67 9.89 10.68 9.16 8.08 Strong
spoken Mandarin fraction 0.26 0.44 0.46 0.34 0.30 Strong written Mandarin
fraction 0.20 0.43 0.41 0.25 0.20 Observations 432 552 724 517 421 Means of
individual-level variables across cohorts. The analytic sample includes
individuals between 10 to 34 years of age in 2011. In villages with closure,
individuals are included if they were also 6 to 29 years of age at the
village-specific years of closure.

###  A.6 Written Mandarin ability responses

In Table A.3, we summarize enrollment, educational attainment, and share
reporting strong spoken Mandarin ability by categories of the household
respondent-provided rating of written Mandarin ability.

Table A.3: Enrollment, attainment and spoken Mandarin ability by written
Mandarin ability

Age in 2011 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 Panel A: Non-response for written
Mandarin ability Currently enrolled fraction 0.93 0.50 0.12 0.01 0.01 Years of
education 5.52 9.25 9.60 8.54 7.50 Strong spoken Mandarin fraction 0.01 0.01
0.01 0.04 0.01 Observations 260 287 277 181 137 Panel B: No written Mandarin
ability Currently enrolled fraction 0.87 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.01 Years of
education 4.58 7.13 6.15 4.98 3.79 Strong spoken Mandarin fraction 0.01 0.04
0.04 0.04 0.03 Observations 101 91 205 212 203 Panel C: Simple written
Mandarin ability Currently enrolled fraction 0.92 0.41 0.03 0.01 0.00 Years of
education 4.84 8.19 8.12 7.38 6.82 Strong spoken Mandarin fraction 0.04 0.05
0.05 0.07 0.07 Observations 478 274 435 506 421 Panel D: Good written Mandarin
ability Currently enrolled fraction 0.94 0.53 0.07 0.01 0.00 Years of
education 5.82 9.20 9.70 9.00 8.38 Strong spoken Mandarin fraction 0.16 0.16
0.21 0.18 0.18 Observations 738 937 1282 1037 743 Panel E: Strong written
Mandarin ability Currently enrolled fraction 0.93 0.71 0.35 0.04 0.00 Years of
education 6.17 10.26 11.90 10.60 9.44 Strong spoken Mandarin fraction 0.78
0.81 0.86 0.85 0.82 Observations 302 803 954 489 284 The Mandarin written
ability variable allows for four answers: no, simple, good, and strong. The
answer is self-rated and provided by the household respondent. Approximately
10 percent of the respondents of the analytical sample did not answer this
question. Better Mandarin written ability positively relates enrollment,
educational attainment, and better spoken Mandarin ability.

##  Appendix B Additional estimation results

###  B.1 Minority groups without own language

There is significant linguistic and cultural diversity among and within ethnic
groups [34, 16]. While most minority groups in China have at least one spoken
language, some do not [77]. The linguistic distinctions might capture not only
differences in language usage but also other aspects of culture, all of which
might relate to the effects of closure. For robustness, in this section, we
re-estimate our main educational attainment and Mandarin ability
specifications from Tables 4 and 5 but now exclude minority individuals that
do not have their own language. Remaining minority individuals are potentially
more sharply distinct from Han individuals.

The CHES survey asks, for each individual, whether household member have their
own language.B.1B.1B.1The Chinese survey question was: 是否有本民族语言, shi fou you
ben min zu yu yan. Among the minority respondents, 84 percent of individuals
were reported as “ _yes_ ” on this question. Individuals from Hui, Miao, Yao,
Dong, and Tujia minorities account for 59, 13, 8, 6, and 5 percent of the
total number of _no_ respondents, respectively.B.2B.2B.2Looking within each
minority group, 60, 10, 41, 8, and 22 percent of Hui, Miao, Yao, Dong, and
Tujia individuals were reported as “ _no_ ” on the question, respectively.
Among minorities with more than three respondents in the survey, four ethnic
groups had a higher than 50 percent _no_ share: Hui (60 percent among 1213
respondents),B.3B.3B.3In the analytic sample, 71 and 25 percent of the Hui
respondents come from Ningxia and Qinghai, respectively. 52 and 79 percent of
Ningxia and Qinghai Hui individuals reported _no_ to the having own minority
language question. Dongxiang (81 percent among 36 respondents), Lisu (94
percent among 17 respondents), and Manchu (80 percent among 5 respondents).
Variations in responses might be due to language heterogeneity within ethnic
groups [65] or possible differences in the interpretation of linguistic
differences within minority groups.

In our first robustness exercise, we drop cases in which minority respondents
are reported as not having a minority language. In our second robustness
exercise, we drop cases for minority groups in which over 50% of respondents
are reported as not having a minority language. Hui individuals account for 59
and 95 percent of the excluded individuals under the first and second
exclusion scenarios, respectively. In both exercises, the Han group stays the
same. Attainment results under the first and second exclusion scenario are
shown in columns 1 to 3 and 4 to 6 of Table B.1, respectively. Table
LABEL:tab:interhan:mandwritetalkm2c:nsfto:drophui presents results for
Mandarin ability following the same layout. In all cases, we find that the
closure effects coefficients are very similar in the direction and magnitude
to the coefficients shown in tables 4 and 5.B.4B.4B.4In an additional set of
exercises, we use all data and estimate heterogeneous effects for Han
individuals, minorities with own languages, and minorities without own
languages. Estimates for minorities with and without own language have similar
directions, but estimates for minorities without own language have standard
errors that are more than twice as large due to the limited sample size.
Results are available upon request from the authors, but not presented here
for conciseness.

The robustness of our main estimation results to considering only minorities
with own language is not surprising given that minorities without-own-language
account for a small proportion of the overall minority sample. These
robustness checks do indicate that the inclusion of these individuals does not
drive the overall results. Given limited sample size for the without own
language minority groups exposed to closure in the relevant age-at-closure
year ranges, we are unable to obtain reliable estimates of whether Hui and
other individuals are impacted more or less by closure, compared to more
linguistically distinct minority groups.

Table B.1: Regressions of educational attainment with school closure, Han-
minority interaction, excluding minorities without own language