Closing the divide

Students from a school for the children of migrant workers in Beijing's Changping district attend an event at the China Science and Technology Museum on May 29. Hu Qingming / For China Daily

Accelerated reform

Under guidelines released by the State Council, the country plans to help about 100 million people settle in towns and cities by 2020. It will remove limits in townships and small cities, relax restrictions in medium-sized cities and roll out measures for big cities to accommodate the large flow of rural residents.

Staying for their dreams Sun Yuchun spends two hours commuting to work on packed buses and goes through the same ordeal on her way home every day. She lives in a 7-square-meter room in a suburb in Beijing and shares a toilet with four other tenants. "Life is tough here, but I have no other choice because current housing policies do not allow people like me to buy property in Beijing," said Sun, 23. According to the municipal authorities, residents who are not registered in Beijing under the hukou, or household registration system, cannot own a car or property in the city unless they can provide proof of social security and income tax payments for five consecutive years. There are similar restrictions for other services and benefits including low-income housing, schooling and pensions. The college-educated Sun, whose hukou is in Henan province, works as a Web designer in a private company in Zhongguancun, earning about 4,000 yuan ($650) a month. Her rent is 750 yuan a month. "The hukou system is making fresh graduates like me second-class residents in the capital," Sun said. She continues to stay in the capital because it offers more job opportunities. Those like Sun who struggle in big cities are known as "new migrants", according to a report released by the China Social Sciences Press last year. It estimated that China has about 150 million new migrants. Lian Si, the lead author of the report and a sociology professor at the University of International Business and Economics, said the new migrants will become an increasingly important part of the country's economic growth and urbanization in which many Chinese citizens will fulfill their "Chinese dream". Wang Qian

The move could put an end to a system that has divided people into urban and rural households since the 1950s, said Huang Ming, vice-minister of public security. In its place, a system of residence permits will be established to allow qualified migrant workers to enjoy urban services.

"The move will accelerate the country's urbanization and contribute to its pursuit of social fairness," said Wu Xianjiang, a professor from People's Public Security University of China who researches household registration reform and population issues.

"By creating favorable conditions, more rural residents will be attracted to urban cities, which will generate a dynamic driving force for the world's second-largest economy," he said.

Under the new guidelines, basic public services, including education, medical care, housing, pension, social insurance, employment and housing, will be expanded to migrant workers and their children.

"It will bring massive opportunities and other reforms to speed up urbanization," said Zhang Yi, a population expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The reform will require large financial support from the government for schools, hospitals, eldercare and housing, he said.

"Apart from increasing central and local government fiscal expenditure, enterprises and individuals should also assume help bear the costs."

According to the Ministry of Public Security, about 52.6 percent of the population in China now lives in cities. But the proportion falls to 35.3 percent if the calculation is based on people's household registration.

Caught between the differences are an army of more than 200 million migrant workers, who have no urban social security entitlement and no access to public housing. Their children also have to pay extra fees to attend public schools.

The hukou system has long caused resentment among China's vast migrant population, currently estimated at 245 million, whose workers are major contributors to the development of cities.

As Premier Li Keqiang emphasized several times, the government will build various systems to speed up the country's urbanization.

"China will take a series of steps to remove limitations on household registration in towns and small cities and gradually loosen the restrictions in large cities to speed up the urbanization," he said in a previous State Council executive meeting, adding that it will allow migrant workers to enjoy equal social welfare with urban residents.

Remaining concerns

Although the latest hukou reform has brought new hope for migrant workers in the cities, some rural workers still raised their concerns.

"The most pressing issue is that of land - if we move to the big cities to work, I wonder whether the local government will confiscate our land, which we mainly depend on to make a living in rural areas," said Zhang Junyi, a migrant worker who has been working on construction sites in Beijing for eight years.

Many rural workers who did not receive higher education and do not possess practical skills also constantly worry about stable employment and integrating in the cities as urban residents, he said.

"Although more migrant works will settle down in big cities to make a living, local governments cannot force them to hand in their farmland and housing in the countryside; and if so, the government should negotiate with them and offer them some economic compensation," said Wu, the professor.

"The key of hukou reform is to cancel the differences seen in urban and rural residents' household registrations, and enable them to enjoy the same social welfare in cities, rather than force rural people to give up their land and housing to exchange for public resources in cities," he said.

"Progress has been made and further reforms will be pushed forward in a gradual manner," said Guo Weimin, spokesman for the State Council Information Office.

Liu Limin, vice-minister of education, said that in the past three years, more than 3 million migrant children have entered kindergartens in cities, and 28 provinces and regions are unveiling or discussing policies on offering migrant students access to the college entrance examination.

Similarly, Wang Pei'an, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said a community-based healthcare system has been established in cities with 8,488 community medical care centers built across the country by the end of 2013.

Huang Ming, vice-minister of public security, said the hukou reform will be unprecedented in scale, coverage and measures to reflect the resolution of the central government in addressing the concerns of the people.

Contact the writers at zhangyan1@chinadaily.com.cn and wangqian@chinadaily.com.cn