Breaking the Lock

A rigid system needs to change By Yin Pumin

Breaking the Lock

A rigid system needs to change By Yin Pumin

After 20 years of working as a stallkeeper in Beijing, 45-year-old Liu Yongping still lives in a rented basement with his wife and two children in the Tuanjiehu community in Chaoyang District.

In 1992, Liu came to the capital from a village in Nanyang, central Henan Province.He hoped to become a permanent resident in Beijing within a few years. But the capital’s strict household registration system prevented him from gaining Beijing-resident status.

“Without a Beijinghukou(permanent residence permit), I feel my family is unwelcome in the city,” Liu said. Having no access to social security bene fi ts available to permanent Beijing residents, including medical and pension insurance, the family currently has to live on the 6,000-yuan ($952.38) income per month earned by Liu and his wife.

Liu is one of the 164 million Chinese who have migrated to cities from rural areas and helped fuel the country’s economic growth.But across China, migrants with ruralhukouhave struggled to gain urban residence permits, as well as corresponding education,medical care, housing or employment services, regardless of how long they may have lived or worked in cities.

China’shukousystem divides people into two basic categories—farmers and non-farmers. Under the system, farmers who move to cities cannot change theirhukoustatus and therefore have little access to social security bene fi ts for locals.

In 2011, the number of people living in China’s cities exceeded the country’s rural population for the first time in history. According to statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics, urban residents accounted for 51.27 percent of the country’s total population of nearly 1.35 billion.But China has counted migrants staying six months or more as part of the resident population of a city since 2005.

Despite this, the historic demographic transition in China, which has been an agrarian nation for centuries, has diverted policymakers’ attention toward making social security programs available to all people, regardless of their place of registered residence.

On February 23, the General Office of the State Council, China’s cabinet, issued a national guideline on reform of thehukousystem, pledging to provide equal access to public services for people living in urban areas without permanent residential permits.

Future policies and measures on essential public services, including employment assistance, compulsory education and occupational training, will not be based on whether one has a permanent residential permit or not, according to the guideline.

It also requested governments at all levels to revise or abolish existing policies and measures inconsistent with that principle.

“As migrant workers have made their contribution to urban development, they should also be given fair treatment when it comes to local social security benefits,” said Zhang Chewei, Deputy Director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

A long-standing issue

China’shukousystem, introduced in 1958,was meant to control the movement of people between urban and rural areas and maintain social order under a planned economy.

However, the country’s reforms and adaptation to a market economy have resulted in record migration in recent years. Recent statistics from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security show that the number of migrant workers reached 252.78 million in 2011, with 158.63 million of them leaving the villages they are registered to live in to seek employment elsewhere,usually in urban areas.

Migrant workers not only have little or no access to social security programs in cities,they also stand little chance of securing wellpaid jobs in Beijing.

“Thehukousystem has played an important role as a basic data provider and for identity registration in the past, but the system is no longer rational given the irresistible trend of migration at present,” said Duan Chengrong, Director of the Research Center for Population and Development at the Renmin University of China in Beijing.

Wang Taiyuan, a notedhukouexpert with the Beijing-based China People’s Public Security University, blames the rigidhukousystem for causing inef fi cient distribution of resources, with an excessive focus on urban areas.

The system enables urban residents to have greater privileges. In Beijing for example, it is easier for those holding a Beijinghukouto matriculate at universities than people from elsewhere in China.

“A huge gap in public service access between local urbanites and migrants has led to migrants becoming marginalized. This exclusion ultimately poses a challenge to social stability,” said Lu Jiehua, a sociology professor at Peking University.

While thehukousystem has failed to stop the in fl ux of rural residents into the cities, it has also impeded their integration into the areas where they now live.

“Hukoureforms would allow China to channel labor to where it is most needed,rather than to areas most popular among the labor pool,” Duan said.

China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15)lays out a target of setting up a mechanism to offer equal public services to people in urban and rural regions. Experts on social affairs believe equality in the availability of education and medical services will reduce the desire of rural residents to move to urban areas.

“This requires that the government reform the currenthukousystem and establishes a unified welfare system to cover urban and rural residents,” said Dang Guoying, a researcher with the Rural Development Institute of the CASS.

The State Council’s reform guideline also proposes the creation of a uni fi edhukousystem, granting equal access to public services for both urban and rural residents.

The distribution of public resources between urban and rural areas should be balanced to improve living standards and working conditions in rural areas, the guideline says.

It also calls for greater protection of the property rights of rural residents, saying that authorities are banned from forcing rural people who have migrated to cities to give up their village homes and contracted fi elds.

Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor at Peking University, said, “Since the social security rights of farmer-turned-workers are not fully guaranteed in cities where they are working and living, the government should closely protect their land rights.”

Meanwhile, the guideline says that efforts should be continued to control the population of major cities, including those directly under jurisdiction of the Central Government, many of which are already over-populated based on their existing infrastructure and services.

Census data showed that the population of Beijing topped 19 million in 2010, though the local government set its target population in 2020 at 18 million.

Of Beijing’s 19 million people, migrants from other provinces and cities comprise 7 million, more than 70 percent of whom moved to the city for work or business reasons.

“Metropolises such as Beijing and Shanghai already have extremely large populations, so it is important to guide the population fl ow into small and medium-sized cities,” said Feng Ku, a researcher on urban development with the National Development and Reform Commission.

Regional reforms

In fact, many provinces and cities have begun reforming their household registration system in recent years. In some places, localhukoucan be acquired if one buys property or invests a certain amount of money.

In June 2010, south China’s Guangdong Province, which is home to more than 26 million migrant workers, launched the country’s fi rst migration scoring system for non-locals.

Under the system, migrant workers earn different points depending on their educational background, skill level, social security records and participation in charity activities such as donating blood. For example, a senior high school graduate will receive 20 points,compared to 80 points for a university graduate, and criminal records and other offending behavior will lead to a de fi cit in points.

A migrant worker will qualify forhukouin the city where he or she works or lives after earning 60 or more points. Those who qualify also confer registration to their spouses and children.

However, in Guangzhou, the province’s capital with a resident population of more than 12 million, the threshold to attain ahukouis higher. A minimum of 85 points is required.

More than 17,000 migrant workers got urbanhukouin Guangdong within a month after the system went effective.

Lin Wangping, Deputy Director of the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, estimated that 1.8 million migrant workers in the province would have theirhukoustatus changed via the scoring system before the end of 2012.

“In addition to helping speed up the province’s urbanization process, the scoring system aims to let more migrant workers share in local economic growth together with urban residents and help build a harmonious society,” Lin said.

In July 2010, southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality also launched itshukoureform, with the aim of turning 3.38 million farmers into non-farmers by 2012 and 10 million altogether by 2020.

According to Chongqing’s municipal regulations, rural residents who do business in the downtown areas of Chongqing for fi ve years or in remote county seats for three years can apply for non-farminghukou.

In mid-November 2010, Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan Province issued a document saying the city would establish a uni fi edhukousystem that no longer categorizes residents into farmers and non-farmers by the end of 2012. Thus all residents of the city would be able to enjoy equal access to basic public services and social security programs.

On April 1, 2011, as one of the most important measures to reform itshukousystem,Chengdu included all its migrant workers in local social security programs.

“This ensures migrant workers have the right to the same social security benefits as their urban peers,” said Zhang Xiaojiang,Deputy Director of Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security. “From that time onward, Chengdu has not distinguished between rural and urban residents and the phrase ‘migrant worker’ no longer exists.”

Given the reform measures now being introduced by local governments,Zheng Fengtian, Vice Dean of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at the Renmin University of China, suggests proceeding cautiously toward the eventual elimination of thehukousystem.

“In reforming thehukousystem, a slight move in one area may affect the entire situation,” Zheng said. “It shouldn’t be like a sweeping storm. We need to prepare in terms of taxation policies, job creation and social security coverage.”