Mercy Corps' goal in China is to foster the development of new and existing civil society initiatives, as well as building and strengthening the capacity of local non-governmental organizations for responses to domestic and regional needs. Photo Credit: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

China's economic development and rapid urbanization have increased the number of people moving within the country, largely from rural areas to towns and cities, in search of job opportunities. Although exact figures vary by tens of millions, official statistics place the number of internal migrants in China at over one-tenth of China's population of 1.3 billion. But even as the migrant pool grows by millions of people each year, China's household registration system—now more than fifty years old—prevents migrants from accessing the public services granted to urban residents.

Why are there so many internal migrants in China?

In the nearly three decades since Beijing instituted major economic reforms, China's urban growth rate surged from about 18 percent to over 40 percent. The nation's urban population rose from roughly 170 million in 1978 to 540 million in 2004. Beijing's official media boasts that, in a few decades, China will complete "the urbanization process which took western developed countries three to four hundred years" to accomplish.

Rural migrants now account for 40 percent of the urban labor force in China.

The economic boom has drawn rural Chinese to cities in search of better-paying opportunities than those in the countryside, fueling urbanization as well as an increase in migration. Since the early 1980s, the number of internal migrants rose from about two million to as many as 150 million people, and rural migrants now account for 40 percent of the urban labor force. As the demand for industrial laborers grew in cities, Beijing relaxed its household registration system—known as hukou— to allow greater freedom of movement for workers. However, the architecture of the system remains in place, continuing to differentiate between urban and rural residents within cities even after peasants move to urban areas.

What is the hukou system?

Established in the 1950s, the hukou system kept Chinese tied to where they lived by making government services contingent upon their occupation and place of residence. While agricultural laborers received land, nonagricultural hukou holders received rations as well as public services such as subsidized housing, free education, pensions, health care, and a broader range of employment opportunities. As explained in a report by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a U.S. commission with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights in China, the system's rules keep rural residents from obtaining many of the same services as their urban counterparts and required peasants to apply to change their residence or for temporary residence.

The hukou system kept Chinese tied to where they lived by making government services contingent upon their occupation and place of residence.

As the country industrialized and farming privatized during the 1980s, the countryside experienced a surplus of labor while urban areas faced shortages, leading to increased migration. Although abandonment of the rationing system allowed migrants holding rural hukou status to buy food in cities, restrictions on movement continued. In the 1980s, most migrants "were seen as a problem" and "they were sometimes rounded up and ‘deported' back to their place of origin," says Jennifer Holdaway, associate director for the migration program of the Social Science Research Council.

Has the hukou system been reformed?

Somewhat. The agricultural versus nonagricultural status set out by the system has becomes less important, but geographical determination—or rural versus urban status—remains important. As a result of the push from the countryside and the pull to the cities, as well as recognition that migration can be tied to development, in the 1980s the central government began reforming the system to allow more rural hukou holders to change their residence status if they met certain financial and educational criteria. In 1992, the "blue stamp" hukou policy enabled rich rural residents to essentially purchase urban status through investment in cities. More recently, reform efforts have included simplifying application procedures and easing limitations on migration to towns and small cities.

However, the number of rural hukou holders who meet the financial and educational conditions set out by reforms remains relatively low, creating what CFR Fellow and China expert Carl Minzner refers to as the "upper crust" of migrants. Meanwhile, the majority of internal migrants who hold either temporary residence status or no paperwork to live in cities often can not access the same services as urban hukou holders without paying fees. Furthermore, because children inherit their hukou status whether or not they are born in a city, they can not gain the services their parents are denied in urban areas.

Why doesn't China more drastically reform the hukou system?

Major reforms would heavily tax social welfare programs at a time when China's government aims to hold down such costs. Granting more internal migrants urban hukou status would involve expanding services to tens of millions of people. As Minzner points out, city hukou holders would resist such a change as the central government "might end up having to actually cut services to an established urban population in order to provide services to the internal migrant population." Also, major reform or elimination of the hukou system could spell an even greater surge in internal migration.

Are there different types of internal migrants?

As rural migrants continue to move to cities, issues such as delays in receiving their back pay lead migrant workers to protest, causing social instability that threatens the security of China's export-driven economy.

Yes. Cai Fang, a migration scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explains in a paper (PDF) on Chinese internal migration that, in addition to those individuals who gain permission to change their hukou status from rural to urban, there is a "traveling population" and a "mobile population." Those in the "traveling population" gain temporary legal residence away from where they live. Internal migrants in the "mobile population" enter the urban labor force without any authentic permission at all. Another category of rural-to-urban migrants is peasants who have had their land expropriated—often without adequate compensation—by local authorities during China's recent development boom. Holdaway says these peasants, sometimes referred to as the "land lost migrants," are at an even greater disadvantage than others and "they can end up as a new kind of urban poor." She says migrant communities in China function within social networks much like U.S. ethnic communities do, but that "land lost migrants" often lack the same security net.

What are the main challenges faced by China's internal migrants?

• Discrimination - The hukou system maintains divisions between urban and rural populations. An Amnesty International report says China preservation of hukou registration violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But experts point out while discrimination against rural populations remains a long-standing problem in China, it has decreased to some degree in recent years because of policies requiring equal treatment of migrants. Holdaway says the media has played a role in helping "urban residents become more aware of how hard life is for migrants and how crucial they are to the economy." An analysis by the Power and Interest News Report discusses a decision by the National People's Congress requiring migrant representation in delegations from areas with large migrant populations, but says that "because many migrants do not move with permission of the authorities, it is unlikely that they will be given accurate representation."
• Education - Internal migrants with rural hukou status must pay a "donation" to attend urban schools, which can be a heavy burden for the largely poor migrant populations and affects some 6.5 million "rural" children living in urban areas. Because hukou is inherited, rural migrant parents must pay fees for their children to attend schools, even if they were born in the city. A report (PDF) by the International Labor Organization found that annual school fees in Beijing can equal more than the salary of some construction workers. The cost prevents about half of migrant children from attending school and forces nearly 10 percent to drop out. Although cheaper schools for migrants exist, the quality of teachers and facilities is generally lower than in regular schools. "The government operates under the assumption that these kids will be going back in a couple years, but they're not," says Zai Liang, an expert on Chinese migration at the State University of New York at Albany.
• Access to Social Insurance - Internal migrants have very low participation rates in social insurances such as pension programs and medical insurance, with a UN Development Program report (PDF) from 2005 estimating that fewer than 5 percent receive pension insurance. The relatively young age of most migrants means they forego participating in programs in favor of saving money or sending funds to the communities they come from. Also, migrants are not able to take their pensions with them if they move on to pursue other opportunities or return home, says Liang. "Every time they move everything will be lost."
• Public Health - Not only do internal migrants face greater occupational hazards, but more than 80 percent lack health insurance. They often live in cramped housing situations where diseases such as tuberculosis can easily spread, creating public health risk. Also, because a large portion of migrants are men who, in some cases, have relations with sex workers, they are more highly susceptible to sexually transmitted disease. Officials estimate that migrant workers accounted for some 80 percent of Beijing's new HIV cases in 2006.
• Lower or Lost Wages - Although migrant workers earn more than their rural counterparts, they face a wage gap in cities and make, on average, 65 percent of what urban residents earn. Furthermore, they often face delays in payment and have limited institutional means to seek redress in cases where they do not receive wages at all.

Is China's rising social unrest related to internal migration?

Social protest has accompanied the growth of China's economy, with a large number of protests occurring in rural areas where local officials fail to address grievances. Minzner explains in this CFR.org Podcast that "central leaders don't necessarily know what's going on until ten thousand local farmers make it out of a particular area and mount a collective protest." As rural migrants continue to move to cities, issues such as delays in receiving their back pay lead migrant workers to protest, causing social instability that threatens the security of China's export-driven economy. British magazine The Business reported that in China's fastest-growing province Guangdong, approximately one thousand protests occurred in plants with more than one hundred workers in 2005.




Contributed by Carin Zissis. Reprinted with permission from the Council on Foreign Relations.

To read another Global Envision article about the internal migration in China, see Not One Less.



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