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I will be editing the article on the hukou system, focusing on its history and practice in China mainland. Below are some important elements of my planned contribution:

Outline

1. Nomenclature

2. History

3. Household Registration in the Chinese Mainland → provide more thorough description of how it works currently

3.1 Evolution → (will follow development of hukou system since establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949 to modern day)

3.2 Function and Rationale → combining function and rationale since the two are inherently linked and substantiating both 

3.2 Enforcement → will be included in Evolution

3.3 During the Great Leap Forward’s Famine → included in Evolution

3.4 Major Functions → combining with section 3.2

3.35 Effect on Rural Workers → Role in Social Stratification and Inequality

3.46 Reform

4. Household Registration in Taiwan

5. Relation to Citizenship

6. Special Administrative Regions

7. See also à moving to after References

87. References

8.1 Citations

8.2 Sources

9. Further reading → combining with External links

8. See also

910. External links

Detailed Proposal

a) Household Registration in the Chinese Mainland: Introduction

In the introduction, I would like to shift the focus from its modern history, which will be covered in evolution, to a basic explanation of the hukou system as it has been implemented in China. This would include a discussion of the agricultural vs. urban residency status, the connection between residency and various government policies, and a brief explanation of the timeline of its development.

References

Chan, K. (n.d.). Five Decades of the Chinese Hukou System. In Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing (pp. 23-47). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

Young, J. (n.d.). The Hukou System. In China's Hukou System: Markets, Migrants and Institutional Change (pp. 27-64). Palgrave MacMillan.

b) Evolution

This section will trace how the implementation of the household registration system has evolved since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. At the time of the Chinese Communist Party’s rise to power, the vast majority of the population lived in rural China. Over the past seven decades however, the migration of people into and out of cities has been a key characteristic of Chinese society as well as economic development. This flow of people has been heavily regulated by the central government, and the administration of the policy has looked differently at different points in history. With this section, I will discuss both the periods of movement as well as the formation and enforcement of policy designed to control this movement, the hukou system.

References

Chan, K. (n.d.). Five Decades of the Chinese Hukou System. In Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing (pp. 23-47). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

Duan, C., Gao, S., & Zhu, Y. (n.d.). The Phenomenon of Internal Migration in China. In Chinese Migration and Families-at-Risk (pp. 14-36). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Wallace, J. (n.d.). China's Loophole to the Faustian Bargain of Urban Bias. In Cities and Stability: Urbanization, Redistribution, & Regime Survival in China (pp. 71-121). Oxford University Press.

Wang, F. (n.d.). Conflict, Resistance, and the Transformation of the Hukou System. In Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance (3rd ed., pp. 80-100). Routledge.

c) Function and Rationale

In this section, I will describe the ways in which the hukou system has been used by the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the way in which the system has been implemented. Hukou was the result of efforts to control mass rural-to-urban migration while simultaneously preventing rioting in the cities, and its administration has reflected and been reflected in the state of the economy. I will also review the ways in which hukou status is connected to social policy, such as retirement pension, healthcare, education, housing options, etc. The link between the implementation of welfare programs and hukou is key to understanding the social stratification of rural versus urban Chinese citizens. Finally, I plan to explicitly illustrate the connection between the rationale and function of the household registration system.

References

Chan, K. (n.d.). Five Decades of the Chinese Hukou System. In Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing (pp. 23-47). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

Duan, C., Gao, S., & Zhu, Y. (n.d.). The Phenomenon of Internal Migration in China. In Chinese Migration and Families-at-Risk (pp. 14-36). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

d) Role in Inequality

Because the central government was looking for a way to ensure that urban residents wouldn’t riot, there were differences in the benefits afforded to rural and urban Chinese citizens. City residents have historically had access to better housing, education, healthcare, and other welfare policies, while rural residents have been unable to access such benefits and must accept second-class government protection. Over time, the inherent nature of cities combined with the policy differential has created a major gap in well-being between urban and rural citizens. This hierarchical policy structure has in turn bled into society, constructing the image of rural residents as inferior citizens.

References

Chen, M., & Sun, X. (n.d.). Parenting and Grandparenting of Left-Behind Children in Rural China. In Chinese Migration and Families-at-Risk (pp. 37-51). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Cheng, Z., Nielsen, I., & Smyth, R. (n.d.). Determinants of Wage Arrears and Implications for the Socioeconomic Wellbeing of China's Migrant Workers: Evidence from Guangdong Province. In Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing (pp. 105-125). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

Gao, S., & Xue, J. (n.d.). Future Orientation and School Bonding among Left-Behind Children in Mainland China. In Chinese Migration and Families-at-Risk (pp. 78-104). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Li, C. (n.d.). Insitutional and Non-Institutional Paths: Migrants and Non-Migrants' Different Processes of Socioeconomic Status Attainment in China. In China's Internal and International Migration (pp. 26-39). Routledge.

Sun, X., & Chen, M. (n.d.). Inequality in Educational Opportunities of Migrant Children in China. In Chinese Migration and Families-at-Risk (pp. 52-77). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Zhuo, Y., & Liang, Z. (n.d.). Migration and Wellbeing of the Elderly in Rural China. In Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing (pp. 126-147). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

e) Reform

In this section I will discuss the reforms that have been implemented over the past twenty years. Among these is a plan published by the central government in July of 2014, which called for the removal of the distinction between urban and rural residents. While these reforms have taken steps towards alleviating the inequality between urban and rural residents, China still has a long way to go before their citizens can be considered to be of relatively equal status.

References

Young, J. (n.d.). Hukou Reform for the New Century. In China's Hukou System: Markets, Migrants and Institutional Change (pp. 149-179). Palgrave MacMillan.

Young, J. (n.d.). Institutional Change at the National Level. In China's Hukou System: Markets, Migrants and Institutional Change (pp. 65-103). Palgrave MacMillan.

Article Edits and Revisions:

Introduction

Although the hukou system has origins in China dating back to ancient times, the system in its current form came into being with the 1958 People’s Republic of China Hukou Registration Regulation.  Until very recently, each citizen was divided into agricultural or non-agricultural hukous (commonly referred to as rural or urban) and further categorized by location of origin.  This two-fold organization structure was linked to social policy, and those residents who held non-agricultural hukou status received benefits not available to their urban counterparts.  Internal migration was also tightly controlled by the central government, and only in the past few decades have these restrictions been loosened. While this system has played a major role in China’s fast economic growth, hukou has also promoted and aggravated social stratification and contributed significantly to the deprivation of many of China’s rural workers.  In recent years, steps have been taken to alleviate the inequalities promulgated by the hukou system, with the most recent major reforms announced in March and July of 2014, which included a provision that eliminated the division between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou status. 

Evolution

Pre-1949: Origins of the Hukou System

The legacy of the Chinese hukou system may be traced back to the pre-dynastic era, as early as the 21st century BC.  In its early forms, the household registration system was used primarily for the purposes of taxation and conscription, as well as regulating migration.  Two early models of the hukou system were the xiangsui and baojia systems. The xiangsui system, established under the Western Zhou Dynasty (circa 11th-8th centuries BC) was used as a method of organizing and categorizing urban and rural land.  The function of the baojia system, propagated by Lord Shang Yang of the 4th century BC, was to create a system of accountability within groups of citizens: if one person within the group violated the strict rules in place, everyone in the group would suffer.  This structure was later utilized and expanded upon during the Qin Dynasty for the purposes of taxation, population control, and conscription. 

The first formal codification of the hukou system arose at the end of the Qing Dynasty with the 1911 Huji Law.  Although movement was nominally free under this statute, registration of individuals with the government was required, and it was used by the government to pursue communist forces and as a basis for taxation for the funding of wars.  The law also expanded upon the baojia system, and was intended to establish a sense of stability. 

In the period following the fall of the Qing Dynasty, China was ruled by various actors, each of which employed some system of household or personal identification.  During the Japanese occupation, the Japanese employed a system used to identify those under their rule and to fund their war effort. Similarly, the Kuomintang utilized the system to monitor the activities of their opponents, the Chinese Communist Party, and the Chinese Communist Party in turn used a system called lianbao, which bundled families into groups of five in order to aid in tracking and impeding counterrevolutionaries.

1949-1978: Maoist Era

At the time of its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China was a highly agricultural nation. About 89% of its citizens lived in rural areas – about 484 million resided in the countryside, versus about 58 million in the city.  However, as efforts to industrialize increased, more and more rural residents flocked to the cities in search of better economic opportunities: between 1957 and 1960, there was a 90.9% increase in the urban labor force. 

A major objective of the hukou system implemented by the central government was thus to control the stream of resources moving away from the agricultural sector.  The instability and high rates of movement that characterized the years following the establishment of the nation impeded the central government’s plan for society and the economy.  Although the hukou system in its current form was not officially brought into being until 1958, the years preceding its establishment were characterized by growing efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to assert control over its populace.   In 1950, the Minister of Public Security, Luo Reiqing, published a statement detailing his vision for the implementation of the hukou system in the new era.  By 1954, rural and urban citizens had been registered with the state, and rigorous regulations on the conversion of hukou status had already been implemented.  These required applicants to have paperwork documenting employment, acceptance to a university, or immediate family relations in the city in order to be eligible. In March of the same year, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Labor issued the Joint Directive to Control Blind Influx of Peasants into Cities, which proclaimed that henceforth, all employment of rural workers in city firms would be controlled entirely by local labor bureaus.

On January 9, 1958, the People’s Republic of China Hukou Registration Regulation was signed into law. This divided the populace into nongmin, with an agricultural hukou, and shimin, with a non-agricultural hukou, and grouped all citizens by locality.  The key difference, however, lied in the distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou status.  Because the central government prioritized industrialization, state welfare programs, which were tied to hukou status, heavily favored urban residents; holders of agricultural hukous were unable to access these benefits and were saddled with inferior welfare policies.  Furthermore, transfer of hukou status was highly restricted, with official quotas at 0.15-0.2% per year and actual conversion rates at about 1.5%.  In the following years, government oversight over the movement of people was expanded. In 1964, greater limits were imposed on migration to big cities, particularly major ones like Beijing and Shanghai, and in 1977 these regulations were furthered.  Throughout this era, the hukou system was used as an instrument of the command economy, helping the central government implement its plan for industrializing the nation. 

1978-Present: Post-Mao

From the establishment of the People’s Republic of China until Chairman Mao’s death in 1976, the central government tightened its control over migration, and by 1978, intranational movement was controlled entirely by the government.  Because living “outside the system” was virtually impossible, nearly all movement of people was state-sponsored. 

However, with Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power in 1978 came the initiation of reforms that steadily began to alleviate some of the disparity between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou holders.  Restrictions have been loosened on movement from rural areas to smaller cities, although migration to large cities such as Beijing and Tianjin are still heavily regulated.  Greater autonomy has also been ceded to local governments in deciding quotas and eligibility criteria for converting hukou status.  Legislation has been enacted that allow migrant workers to obtain temporary residency permits, although these permits do not allow them access to the same benefits as possessed by urban residents.  However, with living outside the system now much more practical than it used to be, a number of migrant workers don’t acquire the temporary residency permits – primarily because they don’t have the resources or concrete employment offers to do so – and as such live in danger of being forced to return to the countryside.  And in 2014, the central government announced reform that among other things eliminated the division between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou status.

Rationale and Function

In its original legislation, the hukou system was justified as created to

“maintain social order, protect the rights and interests of citizens and to be of service to the establishment of socialism”. 

The central government asserted that because rural areas had greater capacity to absorb and use excess labor, the majority of the population should be concentrated in these regions.  Furthermore, free movement of people was considered dangerous, as it would lead to overpopulation of cities and could threaten agricultural production.  Under the hukou system, the rural population was structured to serve as support for urban industrialization.

In reality, the hukou system served other ulterior motives as well. After establishing the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party enacted policies based on the notions of stability and rapid modernization, and the hukou system was no exception.  Urban areas have historically been where authoritarian regimes are most vulnerable: to combat this, the central government gave preferential treatment to city residents, hoping to prevent uprisings against the state, particularly in the early years when it was especially susceptible to rebellion.  The structure of the hukou system also bolstered the power of the central government over its urban citizens: by making city residents dependent upon the government for all aspects of daily life, the central government could force obedience from problematic individuals.

The central government’s efforts to contain migration has been a major factor in the rapid development of the Chinese economy. Their tight check on migration into urban areas has helped prevent the emergence of a number of problems faced by many other developing countries.  For example, the appearance of slums outside of urban areas due to a massive influx of individuals searching for work has not been an issue, nor have poor health conditions due to high population density.  And regardless of its other imperfections, the hukou system’s ability to maintain stability has contributed to China’s economic rise.

Effects on Rural Population

Under the hukou system implemented by the central government in 1958, while holders of the non-agricultural hukou status were given ration cards for everyday necessities, including food and textiles, rural residents were forced to produce everything themselves. Whereas the state provided housing in the city, individuals had to construct their own homes.  The state invested in education, arranged employment, and provided retirement benefits for city residents, and provided none of these services for their rural citizens.  These disparities have left the rural populace highly disadvantaged, and tragedies such as the famine of the Great Leap Forward primarily ravaged rural Chinese citizens.

Challenges Faced by Migrant Workers in the Market

With the loosening of restrictions on migration in the 1980s came a large influx of rural residents seeking better opportunities in the cities.  However, these migrant workers have had to confront a number of challenges in their pursuit of financial security. Urban residents received priority over migrants when it came to employment opportunities,  and when migrant workers did find jobs, they tend to be positions with little potential for growth. While urban workers were supported by employment benefits and laws that favored them over their employers in case of disputes, rural hukou holders were not privy to such substantial protections. And because city officials’ performance was evaluated based on the prosperity of local residents and the local economy, they had little motive to improve the quality of life of migrant workers.

In 2008, the central government passed the Labor Contract Law, which guaranteed equal access to jobs, established a minimum wage, and required employers to provide contracts to full-time employees that included employment benefits.  However, a 2010 study revealed that rural workers earned 40% less than urban workers, and only 16% receive employment benefits.  Migrant workers’ labor rights are also frequently violated – they work excessively long hours in poor conditions, and face physical and psychological harassment. 

Migrant workers are also disproportionately affected by wage arrears, which occurs when employers either fail to pay employees on time or in full.  Although such incidences are technically illegal and punishable by seven years’ jail time, wage arrears still occur, and labor contracts and pensions may be disregarded.  In a study conducted at the end of the 1990s, 46% of migrant workers were missing three or more months of pay, and some workers hadn’t been paid in a decade. Fortunately, over the past couple of decades the prevalence of wage arrears have decreased, and in a study conducted from 2006-2009, it was found that 8% of migrant workers had experienced wage arrears.

Children of Migrant Workers

Following Mao’s death in 1976 came economic reforms that caused a surge in demand in the labor market. Rural residents rushed to fill this void, but without the support of hukou status-based government social programs, many of them were forced to leave their families behind.  Economic growth throughout the years has maintained a high demand for labor in the cities that continues to be filled by migrant workers, and in 2000, the Fifth National Population Census revealed that 22.9 million children between the ages of 0-14 were living without either one or both of their parents.  In 2010, that number had gone up to 61 million, equal to 37.7% of rural children and 21.88% of all Chinese children.  These children are usually cared for by their remaining parent and/or their grandparents, and although there is a 96% school enrollment rate among left behind children, they are susceptible to a number of developmental challenges.  Left behind children are more likely to resist authority and experience problems interacting with their peers;  they are more likely to exhibit unhealthy behaviors such as foregoing breakfast and smoking, and have an increased likelihood of suffer mental health issues, including loneliness and depression.  And although left behind children may have greater academic opportunities due to their parents’ expanded financial capacity, they are also often under greater pressure to perform academically and thus are more vulnerable to school-related stress.

Children of rural workers who do migrate with their parents also face challenges. Without a local, non-agricultural hukou, migrant children have limited access to public social infrastructure. For example, urban students’ educational opportunities are far superior to that of their migrant student counterparts.  The central government reformed the education system in 1986 and then again in 1993, yielding greater autonomy to local governments in the regulation of their education system.  Limited space and the desire to protect local interests in turn induced local governments to avoid enrolling migrant children in their public schools.  Furthermore, because the central government subsidized public schools based on enrollment rates of children with local hukous, migrant children were required to pay higher fees if they wanted to attend. Consequentially, many migrant families elect instead to send their children to private schools that specifically cater to migrants.  However, in order to charge their students lower enrollment and attendance fees, these institutions must cut spending in other areas, resulting in a lower quality of education.  School facilities are often in poor condition, and many teachers are unqualified.

In subsequent years, the central government has enacted a number of reforms, with limited impact. In 2001, it asserted that public schools should be the primary form of education for the nation’s children, but didn’t specify how it would financially support schools in enrolling more migrant children, resulting in little change. Similarly, in 2003, the government called for lower fees for migrant children, but again failed to detail how it would help schools pay for this.  And in 2006, the government created the New Compulsory Education Act with asserted equal rights to education and ceded responsibility for enrolling migrant children to provincial governments.  However, this too failed to improve the lot of migrant children. Students with non-local hukou had to pay inflated admission fees of 3,000 – 5,000 yuan – out of an average annual household income of 10,000 yuan – and are required to take their college entrance exams at their hukou locality, where it is often harder to get into college.

The difficulties faced by migrant children cause many to drop out, and this is particularly common in the middle school years: in 2010, only 30% of migrant children were enrolled in secondary education.  Migrant children also disproportionately deal with mental health issues – 36% versus 22% among their local hukou counterparts – and 70% experience academic anxiety. They frequently face stigmatization and discrimination based off differences in how they dress and speak, and have difficulty interacting with other students.

Impact on Rural Elderly

Not only has the mass exodus of rural residents from the countryside in search of work impacted the children of migrant workers, it has also affected the elderly left behind. With the institution of the one-child policy in the 1970s , the average age in China has undergone an upward shift: 82% of migrant workers were between the ages of 15-44 in 2000.  This has called into question the traditional custom of filial piety, and while retired urban workers are supported by government retirement programs, rural workers must rely on themselves and their families.  It appears that the effects of migration on left behind elderly is ambiguous: while parents of migrant children are often better off financially and are happy with their economic situation, they also tend to report lower life satisfaction than do elderly without migrant children.  Like the children of migrant workers, parents are known to experience psychological issues such as depression and loneliness, and those that take care of their grandchildren may feel burdened by this responsibility.

Reform

Over the past few decades, the Chinese central government has taken steps towards reforming the hukou system. The years 1979-1991 saw the first steps taken in relaxing the hukou system. In October of 1984, the central government released A Document on the Issue of Peasants Settling Down in Cities, which mandated that local governments accept rural migrants into cities as part of their non-agricultural population.  This was followed in July and September of 1985 by the Interim Provisions on Management of Transient Population in Cities and Regulations on Resident Identity Card, respectively. The former overturned a previous law which limited migrants to three months’ stay in the city without obtaining an urban hukou or returning home by introducing temporary residency permits, and the latter directed all citizens over the age of 16 to apply for an ID while also increasing access to jobs in the cities for migrants.  This allowed for the migration 6.5 million young people to the cities as well as the reunion of 2 million couples.  Then, in 1989, the Chinese government published A Notice on Strictly Controlling Excessive Growth of Urbanization, which seemed to act as a check on the reforms passed in previous years, calling for the continued management of migration and strict monitoring to prevent abuse of the system. 

The following decades up until 2014 were generally characterized by continued opening of the hukou system.  1992 saw the introduction of the “blue stamp hukou”, which allowed those who invested 100 million yuan in specified areas, secured a white-collar job, or bought commercial real estate to acquire an urban hukou in certain cities.  This program was then expanded in 1999 to include more cities.  The blue stamp hukou legislation was followed in 1997 by the Pilot Scheme for Reform of the Hukou System in Small Towns and Instructions on Improving the Management of the Rural Hukou System.  These allowed migrant workers to register as permanent residents with equal access to urban privileges in certain small towns, and were made official in 2012 in the Notice on Actively Yet Prudently Pushing Forward the Reform of Hukou System Management.  These steps toward reform were interrupted in 2003 by the Administrative Permit Laws, which reversed much of the previously made progress and forced many migrant workers to return home. 

The year 2014 saw the most drastic changes in hukou policy. In March, the central government released the New National Urbanization Plan, with goals to improve the structure of urbanization, increase hukou status conversion, and support overall sustainable development.  Along these lines, the legislation detailed intentions to grant 100 million urban hukou and to decrease the overall floating population proportion relative to the total Chinese population from 17% to 15%, beginning in 2016 and with aims to reach these objectives by 2020.  In July of the same year, the government published Opinions on Further Promoting the Reform of the Hukou System, which moved to ease restrictions on movement to towns and cities based on size.  This included total abolishment of restrictions on towns and small cities, gradual removal of regulations on middle-sized cities, case-by-case relaxation of large cities, and the maintenance of tight control on the largest cities in China.  Additionally, the July 2014 legislation eliminated the distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou.

Although these legislation appear to be taking steps in the right direction, experts have cautioned optimism. Kam Wing Chan and Buckingham's (2008) article, "Is China Abolishing the Hukou System?" argues that previous reforms have not fundamentally changed the hukou system, but have only decentralized the powers of hukou to local governments. They conclude that the hukou system remains active and continues to contribute to China's rural and urban disparity. Bingqin Li, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales, has written that the new hukou reforms have not actually been effective in improving the quality of life in poorer regions of the country.  Still, others seem excited, remarking that the demographic of some cities appear to be changing, with more parents choosing to bring their children along rather than leaving them behind.