Chongqing’s hukou reform is failing.

Chongqing’s hukou transformation is failing… only very few rural hukou holders are changing their status and the authorities are not happy about that; otherwise students would not be pressed to change their hukou status.

According to a document on the local government website, household registration switch rates will now be one of the criteria for assessing college performance. Institutions that “perform well” in that respect will be praised, while those that do not will be openly criticized, the difference often resulting in the size of funding a college receives..

Even more, a survey by the CASS found out that 80% of rural hukou holders living in cities would not change their hukoy status under current circumstances. Article in Global Times:

“Urbanization is a trend. But local governments, instead of forcing people to switch hukou, should think more about how to ensure farmers get their due compensation after giving up their rural hukou and how they can achieve sustainable development after coming to cities,” Duan Chengrong, a professor of population at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times yesterday. “Cities should offer housing and public services to them and ensure they can enjoy the same resources and welfare services as other urban residents.”

 

 

Guangzhou and the point system

Life of Guangzhou, reports that the point system stablished recently in Shenzhen (with very few results) to decide those who are elegible for local hukou has been extended to Guangzhou. Is this going to be a new general approach? It will be the coastal model? the South model? We’ll keep an eye on it.

The city’s hukou reforms started on march and has been a complete failure, after that, the Shenzhen point system was starting to be discussed and now finally copied. From LifeofGuangzhou

According to Li Qihong, an NPC deputy and Zhongshan’s mayor, more than 30,000 migrant workers working in the city are eligible to become urban citizens, but less than 200 of them have changed their hukou in 2009. (…)

The migrant workers’ hesitation in giving up their rural residence status is well understood by Zhai Weidong, the Party secretary of Chengliu town in Jiyuan City, central Henan Province, a major source of migrant workers.

Zhai told Xinhua rural hukou holders have increasing benefits as the central government and local authorities are giving them more subsidies and many other benefits .

Jiao Tianyin, a villager of Huling in Chengliu, said that one farmer can get subsidies of 100 yuan for one mu of farmland (about 0.067 hectares) each year, 30 to 50 yuan for agricultural machinery. He may get as much as 4,000 yuan as a bonus at the year end and other rewards such as rice and cooking oil.

“If I become an urban citizen and become unemployed, I will have no income and feel depressed. But if I have land, at least I can always make a living,” Jiao said.

“The dilemma exists because people from rural communities want some kind of insurance if they become unemployed in the city,” Zhai said.

Prof. Hu Xingdou, a hukou expert with the Beijing Institute of Technology, said the government should provide complete social security services for those migrant workers. As well, the government should enhance education and training for them to improve their means of livelihood.

Prof. Hu suggested that migrant workers should not have to immediately surrender their land after getting their urban hukou, but Hu Xiaoyan said the rural workers who have settled down in cities should return the land back to maintain fair circulation.

Kong Xiangzhi, deputy mayor of Jiyuan, said job opportunities should be considered as the most pressing issue for the authorities to promote urbanization.

Chongqing’s officials to spend one week with rural population

As seen on Glbal Times, the oficials in ChongQing ordered to spend one week every year with a rural family. I dont think this policy is being really implemented. The hukou reform is not being very succesfull, only 44.000 pesons changed their hukou status so far.

But integration is what the Chongqing model is supposed to be all about. “Chongqing has been designated as an experimental zone for integrating rural and urban development,” professor Cui says. Millions of farmers will become urban residents. Currently, over 70 percent of Chongqing’s residents are registered as rural, and the actual city population only comes to 6 million. These demographics, however, are going to change – and change fast. By 2020, the registered rural population will be halved. That means a million new residents will settle down in the city every year over the next decade.

Cui sees this as a great opportunity, especially for migrant-workers that have already lived in the city for several years but have been denied equal access to educational and medical services due to their rural hukou. “The government will offer urban hukou to 3.4 million migrant-workers by the end of next year,” says Cui. “But they won’t be required to give up their rural hukou for another three to five years, giving them the right to lease their farmland, an important means of insurance for China’s rural population.”

Liu agrees that giving migrant-workers who are in the city the right to choose their hukou is a step forward. But she is worried about the pace of migration, which uproots farmers from their normal support networks.

The city’s administration is now exploring new ways to bridge the rift between rural and urban development. Mayor Bo Xilai, a political superstar who previously served as China’s Minister of Commerce, has ordered officials at all levels to spend a week with Chongqing’s rural population every year – a move that evokes memories of the Cultural Revolution when intellectuals and rightists were sent to the countryside for reeducation.

But Cui, who recently joined a group of about 20 cadres on a village visit, sees great value in the exercise. “During the Cultural Revolution, it was a punishment. Now the purpose is to ensure officials don’t get too detached from the people.”

Some news on the hukou reform

An interesting article appeared on the Strait Times analysing the flaws of the hukou reform: only land (especualtion) for city hukou  and not real transformation, increasing numbers of rural hukou holders prefer to mantain their rural status. The hukou system started in 1958 to prevent farmers from moving to the cities where workers had special privileges such as subsidised housing, free education and medical care, and old-age pensions. Since then, there have been attempts to reform it to allow more rural folk to enjoy the benefits of city hukou. But the reaction of the rural folk in Chongqing shows that the allure of a city hukou is fading. Some farmers readily give up their rural registration, but others are sceptical about the scheme. Villager Zhao Hong told the Caixin economics magazine he believed the motive behind the move to get farmers urbanised was to move them away from their land so the state could take over. ‘Currently the country needs land to develop the economy. I understand this. The key is how much compensation they will give us,’ he said. He also questioned if the government would be able keep its part of the bargain, including providing adequate pension, and asked: ‘Who knows if (the pension) will be enough when we are old?’ Another villager, known as Ren, said: ‘Now the countryside has a pension system; health care is supported by a new rural cooperative; and schools don’t require extra placement fees. If you want to go to a good school, urban hukou still require you to pay extra sponsorship fees. I think it is pointless to become a city resident.’ Chongqing farmers like Ren are not alone in thinking there is little advantage in taking up city residency. In some parts of the richer coastal regions, the urbanisation process has slowed. In Zhejiang province, the number of farmers converting to urban residency dropped by 67 per cent from 570,700 in 2004 to just 189,000 last year. Besides the improved social safety net in the villages, farmers are also reluctant to leave their land because of its soaring value. Reforms have allowed villages to collectively rent out land to enterprises for various types of businesses. Farmers who take part in these schemes are given their share of the profits, which can be substantial where demand is high. Indeed, according to a People’s Daily report last month, some government officials in Zhejiang province used their political power to change their household registration to a rural one in order to benefit from land rental profits. In Beijing, students living in its rural counties are offered a city hukou if they manage to secure a place in one of the capital’s universities. Last July, after the university entrance examinations, some students rejected this offer. One told the Chinese media: ‘If I change my hukou, I’d not be able to enjoy the benefits of the village.’ He pointed to the yearly share of profits from land rental as well as pension and financial help for education. Another obstacle to the urbanisation programme is the flood of migrant workers who choose to go back to the countryside because they are disillusioned with life in the cities and the discrimination they face there. Since skilled jobs are closed to them, they end up taking low-wage jobs in cities, and are viewed with suspicion by urbanities who see them as uncouth and a source of crime. They suffer high living costs, yet are shut off from subsidies in housing, education and social security which city permanent residents enjoy. Only a small proportion – the best among them – are offered permanent city residency or residential permits that afford them some benefits. When migrant workers realise the difficulty of putting down roots in the city, and look at the range of benefits now available to rural residents after social reform, they choose to return to the countryside rather than lose their land, Chinese media reported. The situation of migrant workers exposes the flaws in hukou reform like that of Chongqing. The city offers to convert the registration of farmers living within its parameters who may be unwilling to do so. Yet, like most cities, it does not offer permanent residency status – except for a very few – to the migrant workers living there who have come from other parts of China and who would like to stay on permanently. The long-term solution is really to abolish the dual residency system altogether and allow people to choose where they live. Let market forces decide, as some Chinese analysts have suggested. This would also solve the problems of migrant workers who are forced to live on the margins of the urban society. However, the fear of farmers flooding the cities and overstretching their infrastructure is real, particularly in the prosperous coastal cities. Even second-tier cities such as Shijiazhuang in Hebei province and Zhengzhou in Henan province found their infrastructure, particularly schools, insufficient to cope with the influx of migrants after they allowed migrant workers who had steady jobs and fixed accommodation to convert their rural hukou to a city one. These less than successful experiments have led some to suggest that China is not ready to dismantle the hukou system fully and that this should take place first in less popular cities like Chongqing and Chengdu in the western regions. But true urban reform can take place only if cities like Chongqing are bold enough to offer city residency not just to its own farmers but also migrant workers from other parts of China. Then, the country would be truly closer to the ideal of treating farmers and urbanites alike equally. And and interesting information from Dongguan Today, very small progress, but at least some criteria (even if not very specific): Dongguan has more than six million migrant workers Dongguan began testing a ratings system for migrant workers to obtain the city’s hukou (residence permits) from Wednesday. Those who accumulate 60 points under the system will be able to have their hukou transferred to Dongguan. Around 12,370 people are expected to benefit from the policy this year, said the government on Wednesday. The rating mechanism is divided into several criteria for evaluation, including residence situation and social insurance status. Education level, property and the time working the Dongguan, social service will also help hukou applicants gain extra points. The mechanism is intended to make it easier for migrants to apply for hukou. Dongguan has more than six million migrant workers, who do not enjoy the same treatment as their urban counterparts in employment, education, health care and social security.

Shanghai sets up 3,600 condom outlets for migrants

In Oneindia we can read this story about the inclusion of migrants without local hukou to the “safe sex” program. I wonder what is not being told in this article. They said that after the campaign, now migrants use more condoms than local hukou holders and that they are trying to stop the increase of HIV cases in the city (only 900 new ones, but a 25% increase). It could be that the program oriented to “migrants” is in reality oriented to the (officially non existent) “sex workers”?

Anyway, looks like a good initiative!