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Hukou reform[edit | edit source]

The Chinese government has committed to eliminating institutional discrimination of migrant workers on the grounds of hukou system. But the reform is complicated since it involves restructuring political and social systems, which will impact every aspect including employment, social security and property rights.

The objective of the reform is to merge urban and rural hukou systems into one in which migrant workers can have equal access to public resources as urban residents do. At the beginning of the New Millennium, Fujian, Liaoning and Shandong Provinces abolished the dual-type hukou system and issued identical hukou status to both urban and rural residents. Up to 2008, twelve provinces had abolished the dual urban-rural hukou system. Due to the complication of this issue, however, it is still very difficult for migrant workers to gain access to social welfare in urban areas, though with a hukou reform. For example, some cities such as Zhengzhou once opened public schools to rural migrant children in 2002, but these cities soon realized that there were not enough schools for the large number of migrant children. According to China Daily, Huang Ming, vice-minister of public security, addressed that the national hukou reform would be done by 2020. He said in the interview that the new hukou system would gradually extend pension, education and health care services to qualified residents, both urban and rural.

The Chinese hukou system is a social management system. This system links a person to their birth city. China's hukou system is a social management system. This system links every Chinese resident with their birth place. One can only access their health care, pension and education for their children in their birth city. Cai Fang, director of the Insistute of Population Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated that migrant workers do not have the same benefits as the urban residents. As a result of unequal benefits the migrant workers have limited participation in the labor market. Mr Cai estimates that more than 200 million migrant workers can't participate fully in the labor market due to the limitations from the Chinese hukou system.