Urban Areas

The Chinese Government announced plans to abolish the hukou system – the form of “internal passport” that restricts the movement of Chinese nationals within the country. The move will trigger a mass push towards urbanization and provide migrant workers with a full range of social services in cities away from their hometown. The decision does away with decades of discrimination amongst China’s massive army of travelling workers.

The announcement was made at the China Urbanization Conference in December 2013, at which both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang spoke of the need to urbanize China’s smaller cities as a huge engines for growth. The announcement echoed plans proposed during the Third Plenary Sessions held last month.

The hukou system will be fully removed in towns and small cities, allowing integration of their migrant worker populations. The system will also be gradually phased out in medium-sized cities. Some restrictions will remain in place for the larger metropolises such as Beijing and Shanghai in order to prevent large numbers of workers swamping these cities’ social infrastructure.

These reforms are necessary to enable China’s workers to move to smaller and medium sized cities with the comfort of being able to access welfare, education and medical services. Prior to this they were classified as “rural residents” and only able to claim these services in their home town or village.