Home » Opinion » Chinese Views
Turning rural residents into urban citizens poses fairness issues
By Wang Yue and Huang Haoyuan |
November 18, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
TELEPHONES have been ringing almost non-stop at household registration offices across Guangzhou City since last Friday when the government announced it would accept applications from migrant workers hoping to become permanent residents.
Prosperous Guangdong Province, with Guangzhou as its capital, is the temporary home of more than 26 million farmer-turned-migrant workers, some of whom have long hoped to become permanent residents so they can enjoy major urban benefits. These include sending their children to public schools without being charged extra money and qualifying for public medical insurance and government welfare payments.
To close the gap in the urban-rural divide and speed up urbanization, Guangdong Province in June announced a point-scoring system for migrants from rural areas who want to go urban. To qualify, a worker must first have a score of 60; then his or her minor children, even spouses in some provincial cities, also get registered. Then the names of those who qualify are published for public scrutiny before they become final and the hukou are awarded.
Points are awarded for educational background, skill level, social security records and participation in charitable activities such as donating blood. For example, a senior high school graduate receives 20 points, compared with 80 points for a university graduate, and criminal records and other offenses reduce the score.
For a metropolis like Guangzhou, the threshold for new citizens is higher. The city requires a worker have a minimum of 85 points for a Guangzhou hukou. Guangzhou is among the first of nine Guangdong cities (including Shenzhen, Huizhou, Dongguan and Zhongshan) that have mapped out their new hukou policies as required by the provincial government. Another 12 cities are still making plans, according to Li Changfeng, deputy director of the provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security (DHRSS).
As of July, more than 17,000 migrant workers had become citizens of Guangdong Province through the scoring system, according to the department. Further, an estimated 1.8 million migrant workers are likely to become urban residents of the province through the scoring system by the end of 2012.
The hukou, usually tied to one's birthplace, is a household registration permit that contains all of a household's key information, such as parents' names, births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. Most important, it identifies the city, town or village to which a person belongs. However, the hukou is far more than a government data system for management of information about citizens. The benefits attached to the hukou are what make it (the urban hukou) desirable.
Urban citizens accounted for 63.4 percent of Guangdong's total population in 2009, the highest level among China's provinces. The province set an urbanization target of 67.5 percent by the end of 2012.
Haves v have-nots
Besides hampering urbanization, the hukou system has created an unfair two-tiered system of haves and have-nots among urban and rural residents, which fails to ensure equal access to public services.
In the past many provinces have made efforts to reform the hukou system by relaxing rules and allowing people to acquire a local hukou if they meet certain requirements, such as buying property or investing a large sum of money. The scoring system is an alternative for rural residents who cannot afford to buy homes or make investments. It is also fairer and more systematic since applicants can obtain points through various ways such as education, skills, not violating the family-planning policy and participating in charitable activities.
To receive an urban hukou in Xiaolan under Zhongshan City, Tang Qijun and his wife had to surrender about 1,300 square meters of farmland back in his hometown in Qingyuan City, just a two-hour drive from Xiaolan.
The 35-year-old chose his two daughters' education over the rural land, as the girls cannot get into a better public high school without a local hukou. But many rural residents and migrants are still hesitating, since they believe that if all else fails, they can still go back and make a living from the land. Besides, land near cities is becoming more and more valuable as many Chinese cities are expanding.
(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)
Prosperous Guangdong Province, with Guangzhou as its capital, is the temporary home of more than 26 million farmer-turned-migrant workers, some of whom have long hoped to become permanent residents so they can enjoy major urban benefits. These include sending their children to public schools without being charged extra money and qualifying for public medical insurance and government welfare payments.
To close the gap in the urban-rural divide and speed up urbanization, Guangdong Province in June announced a point-scoring system for migrants from rural areas who want to go urban. To qualify, a worker must first have a score of 60; then his or her minor children, even spouses in some provincial cities, also get registered. Then the names of those who qualify are published for public scrutiny before they become final and the hukou are awarded.
Points are awarded for educational background, skill level, social security records and participation in charitable activities such as donating blood. For example, a senior high school graduate receives 20 points, compared with 80 points for a university graduate, and criminal records and other offenses reduce the score.
For a metropolis like Guangzhou, the threshold for new citizens is higher. The city requires a worker have a minimum of 85 points for a Guangzhou hukou. Guangzhou is among the first of nine Guangdong cities (including Shenzhen, Huizhou, Dongguan and Zhongshan) that have mapped out their new hukou policies as required by the provincial government. Another 12 cities are still making plans, according to Li Changfeng, deputy director of the provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security (DHRSS).
As of July, more than 17,000 migrant workers had become citizens of Guangdong Province through the scoring system, according to the department. Further, an estimated 1.8 million migrant workers are likely to become urban residents of the province through the scoring system by the end of 2012.
The hukou, usually tied to one's birthplace, is a household registration permit that contains all of a household's key information, such as parents' names, births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. Most important, it identifies the city, town or village to which a person belongs. However, the hukou is far more than a government data system for management of information about citizens. The benefits attached to the hukou are what make it (the urban hukou) desirable.
Urban citizens accounted for 63.4 percent of Guangdong's total population in 2009, the highest level among China's provinces. The province set an urbanization target of 67.5 percent by the end of 2012.
Haves v have-nots
Besides hampering urbanization, the hukou system has created an unfair two-tiered system of haves and have-nots among urban and rural residents, which fails to ensure equal access to public services.
In the past many provinces have made efforts to reform the hukou system by relaxing rules and allowing people to acquire a local hukou if they meet certain requirements, such as buying property or investing a large sum of money. The scoring system is an alternative for rural residents who cannot afford to buy homes or make investments. It is also fairer and more systematic since applicants can obtain points through various ways such as education, skills, not violating the family-planning policy and participating in charitable activities.
To receive an urban hukou in Xiaolan under Zhongshan City, Tang Qijun and his wife had to surrender about 1,300 square meters of farmland back in his hometown in Qingyuan City, just a two-hour drive from Xiaolan.
The 35-year-old chose his two daughters' education over the rural land, as the girls cannot get into a better public high school without a local hukou. But many rural residents and migrants are still hesitating, since they believe that if all else fails, they can still go back and make a living from the land. Besides, land near cities is becoming more and more valuable as many Chinese cities are expanding.
(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)
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