DIE ERDE 143 2012 (3) Thematic Issue: Multilocality pp. 233-247 • Hukou system – Temporary rural-urban migration – China Jijiao Zhang The Hukou System as China’s Main Regulatory Framework for Temporary Rural-Urban Migration and its Recent Changes Das Hukou-System als Chinas wichtigstes Steuerungsinstrument der temporären Land-Stadt-Migration und seine jüngeren Wandlungen With 1 Table More than 50 years ago China’s government established the hukou system in order to prevent rural urban migration, requiring people to stay in the area where they were registered. Migrating to the city without being registered as ‘urban’ implied that the migrants had no access to education, food, housing, employment and a variety of other social services. In 1982, when unskilled labour was in short supply in the booming cities, a programme of gradual reform was started which eased the strict regulations. However, the level of liberalisation varied from one province to another and from one metropolis to the other, creating remarkable differences in the regulatory framework. The paper describes the history of the hukou system and its consequences as well as its reforms from the early beginnings to the present day and discusses the need for further reform. 1. Background operates like a boundary between rural area and urban area and divides the population into rural In most developing nations, economic devel- households and non-rural households (two- opment has promoted massive and uncon- tiered boundaries of belonging); individual inter- trolled migration from the countryside into ests and rights, such as education, healthcare, urban areas (Kasarda and Crenshaw 1991). housing and employment, are linked to the Rural-urban migration is a pervasive feature in household registration. Under this system, rural the developing countries. citizens have no access to social welfare in cit- ies, even though they may live and work there. In China, the hukou1 (household) registration Originally, the idea of the hukou system was to system was set up in 1958. The hukou system severely restrict rural-to-urban migration (John- 234 Jijiao Zhang DIE ERDE son 1988; Yang 1993); it formed the central household registration’ (Regulations, 1958) to mechanism to regulate population flows and, un- control the movement of people between urban til the onset of China’s reform in 1978, effectively and rural areas. Individuals were broadly cate- tied Chinese citizens to their place of residence. gorised as ‘rural (agricultural)’ or ‘urban (non- agricultural)’. Supported by employment, ra- In general, urban areas are centres of development. tioning and housing allocation instruments, Incomes tend to be higher and economic opportu- these regulations effectively constrained rural- nities greater. Driven by real or perceived differ- urban migration until the early 1980s. During entials in economic opportunities (Lee 1966; these decades, people were required to stay in Todaro 1969), the needs of families to diversify the small area where they were born (where risk in the absence of formal insurance mecha- their hukou was), and stay there until they died. nisms (Portes and Böröcz 1989) and social net- They could not move. They could travel, but work connections with others who preceded them there was no access to jobs, public services, (Massey et al. 1993) drive peasants to the cities in education, or even food in other places. search of better lives. Thus, rural-urban migration is also an important channel of social mobility. 3. Objectives of the Hukou System In the past 30 years, the huge labour force in the rural areas has made a great contribution to First of all, through the resident registration, the China’s economic growth, urbanisation and mod- system can help uphold the citizens’ civil rights and ernisation as internal rural-urban migrants. The provide basic information when the government is number of migrants has dramatically climbed drawing up national economic and social-develop- from 6.6 mill. in 1982 to 211 mill. in the year ment plans and arranging the rational distribution 2009 (National Population and Family Planning of the workforce. The household registration sys- Commission 2011). Now, China is experiencing tem is an important, even fundamental part of the the largest magnitude of internal rural-to-urban state administration. For public security depart- migration in the history of mankind. ments, such a system plays a major role in safe- guarding public security and combating crime. On the other hand, however, the two-tier hukou system has failed to take into account the real The second reason for establishing the hukou process of urbanisation in the country and has system was central control over employment. throttled the healthy development and a ration- After the introduction of the people’s communes al flow of China’s labour market. This is why in the countryside, work and income were allo- it was necessary to change the system and cated by the production team (or sometimes the adapt it to changing circumstances. These brigade) to its members, thereby effectively ty- changes in the regulatory framework of the ing the peasants to their home villages. With its hukou system over the past 30 years shall be commitment to full employment, the socialist summarised in the following section. state controlled all urban employment. A third factor related to the enforcement of the 2. A Brief Historical Review of the Hukou registration rules was the supply of daily com- System before China’s Reform (1958-1981) modities, especially staple foods. In the course of the 1950s, the state monopolised the distribution In 1958, the Chinese government began using of virtually all goods, and most free markets dis- the family register system ‘PRC Regulations on appeared. Of course, the peasants grew their own 2012/3 The Hukou System and Temporary Rural-Urban Migration in China 235 food, but the state procurement left them with lit- form in the early 1980s, China’s urban residents tle more than a bare minimum, and that again was enjoyed a range of social, economic and cultural allocated on the basis of team membership. The benefits, while China’s 800 million rural residents food products procured from the peasants served were treated as second-class citizens. to feed the urban population. The state supplied the cities with grain and other food at low prices. Social welfare benefits, including food rations – in the not-so-distant past! – and, even now, ac- Two other factors that contributed to the effec- cess to subsidised housing, education, medical tive enforcement of the registration regulations care, retirement benefits, and the right to em- were the severe shortage of urban housing and a ployment in all but menial jobs, are available climate of strict social and political control2. mainly to those with an urban hukou. An urban hukou confers great advantages in life chanc- Basically, at that time, without hukou, people es. The hukou system created two classes of could not move. There were very few people citizens differing sharply in living standards and moving around in the country, but their status was income (Chan 1994; Knight and Song 1999). practically that of illegal immigrants. These disparities cannot be attributed to the dif- ference between the agricultural and non-agri- As a matter of fact, moving from one place to cultural sectors, as even within the non-agricul- another as a household was very hard indeed. tural sector returns to human capital are much Migrant workers required six different passports lower in rural than in urban China. The institution- to work in provinces other than their own. Peo- al boundary between rural and urban China cre- ple who worked outside their authorised domain ated by the household registration system seems or geographical area did not qualify for grain ra- to prevail over other institutional distinctions in tions, employer-provided housing or health care the Chinese social stratification system. (Pines et al. 1998: 334). Compared to rural- urban migration, which was as difficult as get- The effectiveness of the hukou system in re- ting permanent residence in EU countries, rural- stricting internal migration relied on two other rural migration was relatively easier. administrative systems, through which rationing was carried out. At the rural side, the commune For all kinds of administrative purposes, the entire system enabled local governments to tie peas- country was divided into a hierarchy of places, very ants to the land. All adults had to participate in much in a Christallerian mode. In this context, only agricultural production to receive food rations moves between communities of the same rank or for their households (Parish and Whyte 1978) to communities of a lower rank were permitted and migration was generally prohibited except without going through special procedures. with the permission of the local government. At the urban side, the principal administrative units for most urban residents were the workplace 4. Impacts of the Hukou System organisations (danwei), which administered most social services for their employees (Bian Institutionally, the hukou regulations divided 1994; Naughton 1997; Walder 1986). Without China into two systems, with an ‘invisible wall’ a work unit, it was very difficult to survive in a between them: the urban and the rural system city because housing, food, and other social (Chan 1994). The hukou System was also an services were unavailable through the market. obstacle to the shifting boundaries of economic Moreover, because employment quotas in all and social participation. Before the economic re- urban work units were tightly controlled by the 236 Jijiao Zhang DIE ERDE government labour administration (Walder surplus in rural areas. The abolition of the com- 1986), even rural residents willing to risk los- mune system freed peasants to seek work in the ing food rations by leaving their home villages industrial and service sectors. At the same time, would have little chance of getting a job in a both push and pull factors increased the propen- city.