Hukou Reform to Bring 100M People into China’s Cities

China’s urbanisation drive took another step forward today when the country’s cabinet issued a hukou reform law aimed at bringing another 100 million people into the country’s cities.

The law, which was first approved in March, was finally issued today by China’s State Council, and is aimed at reforming the hukou system that ties citizens to their home cities or villages, and without which migrant workers are commonly denied access to schools or other basic public services.

Different Rules by City Size

According to a report from the official Xinhua news agency, the State Council’s edict removes limits on hukou registration in the smallest communities, relaxes them in mid-sized cities, and sets new rules for residency registration in the nation’s largest cities. The document also specifies that citizens should not be denied basic rights and benefits just because they lack a hukou for the city where they are living.

Speaking to the media today, Vice-minister for Public Security Huang Ming indicated that for the purposes of the new law, medium-sized cities will be those with a population of one to three million people, and large cities will be defined as those home to more than 5 million residents.

Keeping Control in the Largest Communities

The government aims to maintain restrictions on the number of people legally allowed to migrate to its megacities of more than 5 million people, as it continues to fear the creation of slums and potential unrest. Migrants hoping to gain residence in these megacities will need to qualify through a rating system that ranks applicants based on their level of employment, whether they own their own home, and social benefit contributions. (In China, contributions to government social benefit programs are deducted from employee paychecks as a percentage of their income).

China’s hukou system, which dates back to at least the Xia Dynasty (c. 2100 BCE – 1600 BCE), has been used since the 1950s to link citizens to their work units and their hometowns. While the link to the work unit has faded with the rise of private employers, most Chinese risk losing access to government benefits if they live in a city where they have not registered a hukou, and changing hukou registration to a new city continues to be a daunting process.

While the system appears to have originated in China, hukous or related documents are also used in Japan, North Korea and Vietnam.