Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Senior Theses and Projects Student Scholarship Spring 2012 The Eroding Hukou System and the New Minimum Wage in China: The Impacts of Economic Inequality, Labor Shortages and Social Unrest Allison J. Selby Trinity College,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses Part of the Asian Studies Commons, and the Labor Economics Commons Recommended Citation Selby, Allison J., "The Eroding Hukou System and the New Minimum Wage in China: The Impacts of Economic Inequality, Labor Shortages and Social Unrest". Senior Theses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2012. Trinity College Digital Repository, https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/176 The Eroding Hukou System and the New Minimum Wage in China: The Impacts of Economic Inequality, Labor Shortages and Social Unrest A thesis presented by Allison J. Selby to The Department of International Studies Directed by Dean Xiangming Chen Trinity College Hartford, Connecticut May 2, 2012 Abstract The hukou system, also known as the Household Registration System, has had a significant impact on China’s social, political, and economic trajectory since the time of its implementation in 1958. Specifically, it has helped to create the societal-wide imbalance between the prosperous coastal cities along the eastern seaboard and the lagging rural countryside of China’s interior provinces, where a second class group of citizens has emerged. As a result, the central government has strategically begun to increase the minimum wage nation-wide, as evidenced by the 12 th Five Year Plan. The repercussions of this are potentially enormous, not only for low-paid workers in China but also for world-wide consumers of Chinese products and competing producers.