Livieratos 1

CHINA’S OTHER GREAT WALL: BARRIERS TO RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION

Over the past thirty years, the largest human migration in world history has taken place.

Surprisingly, this movement has not been the result of war, famine, or natural disaster; in fact, this

specific shift has taken place entirely within the borders of one country. Economic, social, and political

liberalization in China’s post-Mao era served as the catalyst which began such a dramatic change in its

human landscape. Since the beginning of the 1980s, loosened restrictions have led to a mass exodus of

Chinese citizens from rural to urban areas. This group, often referred to as China’s “floating population”

(or liudong renkou 流动人口), is estimated to include up to 200 million people. 1 In fact, about one out

of every six migrants in the entire world today is Chinese.2 Despite the apparent ease of internal

migration, China’s central and local governments still exert great control over the ability and ease of its

citizens to relocate, using the policy instrument known as the hukou (户口) system, as well as access to

economic and social protections once relocation has occurred. Rural-to-urban migrant workers, known

as mingong (民工), are often discriminated against by the government, employers, as well as urban

residents. Lower pay, poor access to housing, no social security, and poor access to education for their

children are only some of the issues mingong face. Even with the burdens and difficulties they are sure

to face in cities, millions of rural residents still come to Chinese cities every year, both for temporary

periods and with the intention of settling down.

While the earliest remnants of the hukou system in China can actually be traced back to 5 th

century BC during the Warring States period, 3 the modern hukou system is modeled after the Soviet

propiska, or internal passport, system. 4 The hukou system is the most crucial foundation of China’s

1
Ingrid Nielsen and Russell Smyth, ed. Migration and Social Protection in China. Singapore: World Scientific
Publishing Co., 2008, 3.
2
Daniel Goodkind and Loraine West. “China’s Floating Population: Definitions, Data and Recent Findings.” Urban
Studies. Vol. 39, no. 12. 2002, 2237.
3
“China’s Household Registration (Hukou) System: Discrimination and Reforms.” Roundtable Before the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China. 109th Congress, First Session. September 2, 2005, 3.
4
Chan, Kam Wing and Will Buckingham. “Is China Abolishing the Hukou System?” The China Quarterly. Vol. 195.
September 2008, pp.582-606, 587.
 Livieratos 2

social and spatial stratification, and it has helped create Chinese “cities with invisible walls.” 5 In fact, it is

quite common for one’s hukou to be considered along the same lines as gender, age, and income as a

main variable defining exogenous constraints on individual behavior in China. 6 The hukou system was

established in 1951 and formally instituted across China in 1958. Originally, all Chinese citizens were

required to register their hukou leibie (户口类别), or household classification. The original categories

were “agricultural” and “non-agricultural” because that determined the type of work and benefits one

received in China’s planned economy. 7 However, this classification eventually turned into “rural” or

“urban” residents. In addition to classifying all citizens, ones hukou must also include suozaidi (所在地),

or place of residence. In order to legally move from either a rural to an urban area or from one province

to another, Chinese citizens had to have their hukou officially changed by the municipal authorities of

both the departing and arriving cities. While it is now possible for mingong to gain temporary residence

status in cities, this was not the case before economic reforms took place.

Though still difficult to officially change one’s hukou from rural to urban, it is much easier since

reforms for rural citizens to gain temporary residence in a city or to illegally move without being caught.

However, this process is not yet entirely fluid, nor is life easy for migrant workers. In 1995, China’s

Ministry of Labor established that in order to be a legal temporary resident of a city, every migrant

needs: an identification certificated issued by the police department of the originating county, valid for

ten years; a temporary resident certificate issued by the police department of the destination city, which

must be renewed each year; an employment certificate issued by the labor bureau of the originating

county; and an employment card issued by the labor bureau of the destination city to show proof of

employment.8 For migrants coming to Beijing, these various cards cost about 450-650 Renminbi (or

yuan), which is about the equivalent of one month’s pay for most migrant workers. 9 In Tianjin, all rural

5
Ibid, 583.
6
Ibid, 582.
7
Ibid, 588.
8
Shunfeng Song and Aimin Chen, ed. China’s Rural Economy After WTO: Problems and Strategies. Burlington:
Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2006, 163.
9
Ibid, 163.
 Livieratos 3

migrants must also pay an additional 120 yuan in administrative fees every year. 10 Once migrants pay

these additional fees and navigate the bureaucracy of the system, they still face immense challenges

upon arriving in a city. Their pay is lower than urban residents, they are discriminated against, usually

work longer hours, and are often separated from their families.

It should now be clear that many barriers to migration exist, but it is equally important to

understand the situation mingong face in cities upon their arrival and what the government has done in

response. While city life is usually not very difficult for those migrants that are able to officially change

their hukou from rural to urban, known as qianyi (迁移) migrants, they are few and far between. The

vast majority of rural to urban migrants are non-hukou migrants, meaning that their adjustment to city

life is often difficult and arduous. Mingong immediately face discrimination upon arriving in the city.

While they usually can find work, the jobs they do get are known as “3-D” jobs- dirty, dangerous, and

demeaning. Wage discrimination against migrants is rampant. In a 2003 survey in Zhejiang province,

the mean monthly wage for migrant workers was 982 yuan compared to 1213 yuan for non-migrants in

urban areas.11 At the same time, migrants worked an average of 57 hours per week, while non-migrants

only worked 48 hours.12

Once they have found work, discrimination against migrant workers is far greater than in wage

only. For example, in Zhejiang province, 73% of workers with an urban hukou are under contract, while

only 54% of migrant workers have one. 13 The majority of migrant workers are young men, many of

whom are married. However, most married migrants venture to cities alone, with the plan of sending

money back home to their families. While still relatively poor, these migrants offer suffer from a

poverty which can be just as damaging as physical poverty- psychological poverty. 14 The feeling of

isolation often has long-lasting negative ramifications on migrants’ personal lives and their family

relationships. In fact, numerous studies have been done highlighting the importance of this very issue.

10
Ibid, 163.
11
Ibid, 199.
12
Ibid, 199.
13
Ibid, 200.
14
Nielsen and Smyth, 4.
 Livieratos 4

Because many migrants are not under contract or work in the “informal” sector, they are paid in

cash and receive little benefits from their employers. Since the end of its planned economy, China no

longer offers social security and insurance benefits to all its citizens. While most still qualify through

their employer, which is often the state, or through political affiliations, many Chinese are now

uninsured and have no social security. No group is this issue more pressing for than migrant workers.

Most mingong do not have any type of insurance or social security benefits. In a 2005 survey of China’s

largest cities, only 2.7% of rural migrant workers had pension insurance, compared with 59.3% of local

resident workers. 15 The percentage covered of rural migrants vs. local resident workers for

unemployment insurance was 1.3% vs. 20.8%, work injury insurance was 2.4% vs. 17.4%, and medical

insurance was 1.8% vs. 48.1%. 16

Another issue facing rural urban to migrants in China is housing. Because most migrants come

to cities with the intention of sending money back home, they do not wish to spend much money on

their own living quarters. While it has recognized many of the difficult issues facing migrant workers,

the Chinese government has yet to directly address many of them, including housing. The government

rarely provides subsidized or low-cost housing to migrant workers. Not surprisingly then, the greatest

source of housing for migrants is provisions from their employer. 17 Despite this potential positive,

migrant workers are often crammed into tiny living spaces with multiple other people, leading to an

insufficiency in housing. Additionally, many migrants are self-employed, so they have no employers to

offer them housing or other benefits like insurance. In a survey of about 800 migrant workers in Tianjin,

78.7% had no access to a shower, 67.2% had no access to a kitchen, 52.6% had to share a public

community toilet, only 30.6% had access to tap water, and 29.8% lived in a structure that was only

temporary.18 Housing reform in China over the past few decades has helped migrant workers very little

because they are usually unable to afford decent housing on their own.

15
Ibid, 53.
16
Ibid, 53.
17
Li, 183.
18
Nielsen and Smyth, 195.
 Livieratos 5

Despite all these major issues, the most pressing concern, at least in the view of migrant

workers themselves, is education for their children. While the central government supposedly

“guarantees” access to education for all children, including migrants, this is often not the case. If

migrants bring their family along to the city, or if they have children once living in a city, it is very

difficult to get their children enrolled in the local school system. Local schools often make migrant

families pay a “donation” to get their child enrolled in a public school, which they can almost never

afford.19 In response, some migrant workers and NGOs have helped create special schools for migrant

children so they can still obtain an education. However, these schools usually receive little or no

government funding and are therefore severely under-resourced. Even children of those holding a rural

hukou are usually subject to such discrimination and difficulty, even if they have lived in the city for a

long time and their children were born there. Despite reforms to the system, it is unfortunately still the

case in China that one’s hukou status still shapes their opportunities in life. In a testimony before the

United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China in 2005, Dr. Fei-Ling Wang stated that “few

other institutions are more important than the hukou in defining and conditioning politics, social life,

and economic development in China.”20

To more fully understand the effect rural to urban migration has on both migrants and cities, we

will briefly look into the case of mingong in Tianjin. Tianjin is a city just to the southeast of China’s

capital, Beijing. In 2003, Tianjin had a population of 10.11 million permanent residents; 21 however, this

does not include the millions of migrant workers in the city who only live there temporarily. Researcher

Bingqin Li conducted in-depth interviews with a group of a few dozen migrant workers in Tianjin in June

and July 2004 in order to understand their personal experiences and qualitatively study the plight of

migrant workers. The age range of those Li interviewed was 16 to 50, and this included men and women,

married and single migrants.22 The average income of all interviewees was 813 yuan per month,

19
“China’s Migrant Children.” The Guardian. Video Clip from Youtube. Available from
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_clX1WACZ6Y>. Accessed 28 March 2010.
20
Congressional Report, 2.
21
Li, 178.
22
Ibid, 180.
 Livieratos 6

compared to the 955 yuan per month average of all Tianjin residents at the time. 23 When asked why

they had moved to Tianjin, the interviewees gave a range of responses, including “The city is not nearly

as tightly controlled as cities like Beijing and Shanghai.” 24 This response echoes a very famous Chinese

proverb- “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away,” (tian gao huangdi yuan 天高皇帝远), which

essentially means that the central government has much less influence outside Beijing, the capital city.

Even though Tianjin is very close to Beijing, this understand reinforces the idea that although the central

government has made promises to reform the hukou system, it has had little success co-opting local

authorities to do so. Another response to the question of why the workers came to Tianjin was “Before I

came, I heard about Tianjin from my relatives and friends, so I just joined them.” 25 This response brings

out another very important point about migration in any country, including China: most migrants know

people in the city which they are moving to, usually family, friends, or other migrants from their

hometown. When migration flows in China are studied, this pattern is very discernable because

migrants from one region or province usually migrate to similar areas. This map of migration patterns in

China from 1985-1990

demonstrates that there

are very clear paths of

migration, almost always to

a neighboring province. 26

This idea verifies the first

assumption of migration

theory, which argues that

migration is a rational

action.

23
Ibid, 180.
24
Ibid, 182.
25
Ibid, 182.
26
Source: Chan, Kam Wing, Ta Liu, and Yunyan Yang. “Hukou and Non-Hukou Migrations in China: Comparisons
and Contrasts.” International Journal of Population Geography. Vol. 5. 1999, 432.
 Livieratos 7

In the group of interviewed mingong, some wanted to eventually move to another city, some

wanted to stay in Tianjin permanently, and some were not sure what they wanted to do in the future.

However, almost all the migrants said that they wanted to remain in a city permanently. When asked

why, most talked about income and money, but many discussed a variety of other reasons as well.

“Urban life is much more interesting than rural life,” “Back in the village, I did not have enough work to

do. We would not be able to survive if we did not work. In the city, we have more opportunities to

work. If I lose my job, I can go for another one.”27 When asked about their lives outside of work, most

of the interviewees reported that they never go out after work, saying that they were too tired and that

they did not want to spend money on social and leisure activities. 28 Their only social activities were ones

which did not cost money, such as reading used newspapers, chatting with one another, and wandering

the streets. Only one of the interviewees went to internet cafes and played games, and almost none

spend time or money to shop.29

After reviewing both quantitative and qualitative information on rural to urban migrants

throughout China, it is very clear that the hukou system has a profound impact on the plight of migrant

workers. Rather than discussing further how the Chinese government controls (or attempts to control),

we will now discuss a very different question- should the government seek to maintain the hukou

system and control migration? Would ending the hukou system also end China’s rural-urban “apartheid”

which the system creates? The argument for maintaining the hukou system from the perspective of the

government, especially local governments, is fairly easy to understand despite its implicit discrimination.

Local authorities have very little reason to want to change the system because they will lose taxes and

fees which migrants pay, have to provide social services to hundreds of millions more people, and

receive little help from the central government to do so. However, it is very difficult to make an

objective argument supporting the continuation of the hukou system.

27
Li, 183.
28
Ibid, 189.
29
Ibid, 189.
 Livieratos 8

Perhaps the strongest argument to be made for ending the hukou system is perhaps from the

urban planning perspective, using the idea of a “livable city.” This approach not only takes into

consideration the livelihood and security of a city’s citizens, but it also incorporates a humanistic ideal,

recognizing that there is more to life than having a safe place to sleep and making enough money to eat.

Dr. Wang argued to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that “to advocate, help, and

facilitate the reform of the hukou system will help the advancement of human and civil rights for the

majority of the Chinese people.” 30 In fact, discussion of the hukou system is even considered to be part

of the United States’ bilateral dialogue with China on human rights. Perhaps the best model for a livable

city including both traditional urban planning concepts along with humanistic ideals is Michael

Douglass’s model, which includes three major realms: the environment, personal well-being, and the

idea of “lifeworlds.” While migrant workers in China often suffer in all of these realms, it is evident that

the hukou system places the largest strain on migrants’ lifeworlds, which includes social well-being in

the form of leisure, entertainment, and personal relationships. Various interviews with migrant workers

have shown that they suffer from very important forms of poverty unrelated to money- psychological

and social. The sense of isolation and discrimination along with the inability to have a social life outside

work plagues almost all rural to urban migrants in China.

Few Chinese citizens today are prevented from migrating by the hukou system. However, its

existence insures that migrants will face a situation of discrimination and unequal treatment once

arriving in an urban area. Ending the hukou system would be a major step towards helping create

equality amongst rural and urban residents in China. However, simply abolishing the system with no

other institutional changes would not achieve a very desirable result because of the host of issues

associated with migrant discrimination separate from one’s hukou registration. Additionally, it is not

likely that the CCP will completely abolish the hukou system any time soon. In lieu of this, there are

many reforms that China’s central and local governments can make both to the system and in other

capacities which will have a major effect on decreasing the problems associated with internal migration.

30
Congressional Report, 3.
 Livieratos 9

The three major realms which can affect change in migration policy in China are the government,

the private sector, and civil society. Despite a weak and suffocated civil society, which prevents

migrants from making change on the large-scale, informal migrant networks are the most important

source which migrants in China rely on for help. Second to this is the private sector, with migrants’

employers often providing them housing and basic services, even if they are not fully sufficient. While

the role of the private sector and civil society in the plight of migrant workers could definitely be

strengthened, the most important missing factor in helping rural to urban migrants in China is the

government. It is time for the government to step in and “fill the gap” in social support which civil

society and the private sector cannot fill, at least not without major changes to the hukou system. While

one of the most important steps in achieving this goal would be more responsive local governments, for

the purposes of this discussion we will limit ideas to what the government should do rather than

attempting to navigate responsibilities of specific government levels or institutions in the murky Chinese

bureaucracy. The most important thing the government can do to help rural migrants is to integrate

them more fully into urban society. Currently, migrants do not usually bring their families, do not go to

hospitals, do not travel by public transportation, and do not go out after work. 31 The government needs

to begin offering subsidies to help solve some of these problems, not only to individual migrants for

things like housing, but also to the private sector so that companies can offer migrants more benefits. In

order to insure that this happens, the government should also have enforceable regulations not only

regarding equal hiring practices, but also equal treatment and social provisions for migrant vs. urban

resident workers.

Rural migration in China is showing no signs of stopping or even slowing, so local governments

need to learn how to properly accommodate migrants in their cities, which not only help the migrants

integrate better into urban society, but it also prevents civil unrest from being aimed directly at local

authorities. By even recognizing that the unequal treatment of migrant workers is a major problem, the

state would be taking a major step in the right direction. As part of its dialogue about this issue, the

31
Li, 191.
 Livieratos 10

Chinese government should directly include migrant workers, either somehow getting them involved in

the decision-making process, or forcing government officials to directly talk to migrant workers at the

very least. One of the other major problems associated with rural migrants is the discrimination they

face by urban society in general. To combat this, the government needs to use the media and education

system to make discriminatory behavior unacceptable, if not illegal.32 Another major initiative which the

Chinese government needs to take is to end any fees associated with enrolling the children of migrants

in local schools and guaranteeing that enrollment occurs freely. If this were done, migrants would be

much more likely to bring their families with them, which would end a great deal of the isolation and

depression they feel upon arriving in the city. This action would also be a major step in creating a more

equitable education system in China, which is another very important issue the country currently faces.

As discussed earlier, educational opportunities for their children was the number one concern about

rural to urban migrants, and this act alone would have a significant impact on lessening China’s urban-

rural inequality.

Governments in China’s rural areas could also take action to help ease the problems associated

with internal migration. One of the most important things rural authorities could do would be to lessen

the heavy taxes and fees placed on agricultural workers, especially the regressive income tax. This

would not only raise the income of rural workers, but it would also decrease the push factors forcing

migrants out of rural areas. By decreasing the amount of migration overall, the strain placed on

individual migrants and major cities would be lessened, making solutions to migration-related problems

more viable. The history of migration around the world shows us that there is no definite policy which

will prevent people from moving to urban regions. Rather than attempting to do so through the hukou

system, the Chinese government should focus more on finding jobs for surplus rural workers and

integrating migrants into urban societies. While this will certainly not end rural to urban migration, it is

the only way to achieve an equitable outcome not only for the migrant workers themselves, but for all

citizens in China.

32
Ibid, 192.
 Livieratos 11

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