Cities Harbor the “Floating Population”

By staff reporter HOU RUILI

The State Council has proposed a step-by-step institutionalization of the residential certificate system across the country, in place of the dual household registration. China Foto Press

THEY may love or hate it, approve its promise and generosity or resent its prejudice and miserliness, but migrant workers don’t hesitate to throw themselves into the embrace of the city; their longing to fall into its open arms has never abated.

The State Council has proposed a step-by-step institutionalization of the residential certificate system across the country, in place of the dual household registration. China Foto Press

Migration from rural to urban areas is complicated by China’s household registration system, a matter brought up by Premier Wen Jiabao at the end of last year. Essentially people are registered in their place of birth and it is this local registration that determines social benefits. The Premier emphasized that measures to make the system more flexible should be enacted in stages. Top of the list are cases of migrant workers with permanent jobs and urban residences who still lack the status of a registered city resident. System reform would make it possible for them to live and work in their adoptive city without prejudice, and enjoy the same rights and obligations as other citizens. At the same time, he cautioned, reforms should be sensitive to the bearing capacity of a city and adopt measures that will steer settlers to small and medium-sized cities or big towns in the countryside.

Residential Certificate Replaces Temporary Stay Permit

To control mass migration, China introduced a temporary stay permit system in 1958, which requires people who stay for more than three days in a city not their own place of residence to register with the local police station. In 1984 the number of such permit holders suddenly ballooned, signaling an upsurge in the floating population. Eighty percent were rural migrants that poured into cities seeking new means of livelihood. The temporary stay permit was no more than a tool for local governments trying to manage population bubbles within the planned economy; it conferred no rights to social benefits enjoyed by local citizens.