The Hukou System

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The Hukou system is the registered residence component of China’s household registration system. As it is now, the system is often deemed as being unfair. It has prevented every person in a city from having equal claims to services, especially migrant workers. Migrant workers are defined as people who belong to an agricultural household under registration but work a non-agricultural job outside their registered region for half a year or more. As of 2009, migrant workers made up around 17.3 percent of China’s population (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2010). They usually have fewer benefits than other residents, such as less access to social security and limited education options. The Hukou system also removes the right of migration for rural citizens (Cai 2011). Present day migrant workers are showing unrest against the system. They have a higher awareness of their rights, put more emphasis on their personal space and quality of life, and want to move into the city more (Yi-han 2013). The Hukou system should be reformed to become standardized so that every city follows and implements the same conditions. In addition, it should be based on where you live and work, not where you were born. Reformation would allow benefits, incomes, and labor mobility to be boosted. These changes would cause an increase in the number of workers, which would benefit to Chinese economy by raising productivity (China Economic Review 2012). In general, migrant workers are faced with many inequalities compared to other Chinese citizens. Even though they contribute to the cities that they work in by helping to improve economies, they are often segregated from the general population (Kuang and Liu 2012). Migrant workers are much less likely to own a... ... middle of paper ... ... Yaping Zhou. "More than Double Jeopardy: Effects of Gender and Hukou on Employment Opportunities in Urban China." American Sociological Association, 2011: 1126. Wu, Xiaogang. "The Household Registration System and Rural-Urban Educational Inequality in Contemporary China." Chinese Sociological Review, 2012: 31-51. Xiaoling Li, Eva, Abuduhade, Zong Li, Hua Wen, Rong Wen, and Peter S. Li. "Integration of Minority Migrant Workers in Lanzhou, China." Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2013: 117-131. Yang, Juhua, and Chengrong Duan. "School Enrollment of Stay Children, Migrant Children and Other Children with A Rural Registration: An Analysis of China's 2000 Census." American Sociological Association, 2008: 1-23. Yi-han, Xiong. "The New Generation of Migrant Workers and Legitimacy Crisis of Local Citizenship in China." Fudan Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences, 2013: 1-24.

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