Equal rights required

However, simply allowing freer migration does not address the many problems that migrant workers face when they finally get to the city.

According to Zhang Chewei, deputy director of the Research Institute of Population Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, the system denies migrant workers their fundamental right as a Chinese citizen to be treated equally.

He cited that a Beijing citizen earning less than 2,500 yuan ($313) a year could receive monthly subsidies as well as medical insurance, a pension and even low-cost housing. That was in contrast to the few benefits given to farmers living on the same income.

Education for migrant children is an equally controversial topic, with migrant families often charged discriminatory tuition fees at urban schools - a practice that is officially prohibited.

Each migrant worker for example, must shell out between 20,000 to 30,000 yuan ($2,500 to $3,750) for a child to enrol in a local primary or middle school.

Zhang remarked that, "As migrant laborers have made their contribution to urban development, they should also be given fair treatment when it comes to social benefits and justice."

Besides the unfair treatment, Professor Duan believes that the hukou system is also "an obstacle to the market economy". "The trend is towards eliminating it," he added.

Professor Duan went on to say that while the hukou system has failed to stop the influx of rural dwellers into the cities, it has impeded their integration into those areas and their access to the most prized jobs.

"Hukou reforms therefore, could allow China to channel labor to where it is most needed, rather than to areas most popular among the labor pool," Duan said.

However, the lack of control over the surplus migrant labor force, not to mention their families, continues to weigh heavy in the decision-making process. The inadequate infrastructure of many Chinese cities also affects the process.

"If the new hukou system is not matched by the introduction of social programmes, the only kind of freedom that official red seal will provide for is the freedom to create urban slums," said Duan.

"More equality in the availability of urban education and healthcare should be granted for all workers and their families, while more rural townships need to provide useful public services so that there would not be so many people yearning to move to the cities."

The International Organization for Migration, which opened a new liaison office in Beijing last month, is set to launch a US$3 million project in a bid to help Chinese government agencies and social organizations improve their mechanisms and services to protect the rights of migrant workers.

Twelve provincial areas, including Hebei, Liaoning, Shandong, Guangxi and Chongqing, have launched trial reforms to help bring an end to the differentiation between rural and urban residents.

Beijing, Shanghai and some cities in Guangdong Province have loosened some of the restrictions that previously hindered people from changing their hukou. Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province is also initiating trial reforms in its household registration system, and aims to have them fully implemented across the province by the end of the year.

When being told that he may one day be able to change his rural hukou for a Beijing city hukou, Du Shujian could not hide his excitement, and asked: "Do you know when exactly?"

"It is not for me, you know," he remarked.

"I have been in Beijing for 10 years and I survived, but it will mean a lot for my daughter - I want her to attend a decent kindergarten and elementary school, just like other Beijing kids."

China Features

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