Masters Thesis

2014 New Urbanization Plan: What progress has been made in Chinese cities towards implementing hukou reforms?

During the 1950s, the Chinese Communist Party created the hukou system to segregate urban workers in the cities and the peasants in the countryside. One of the reasons the CCP did this was to help jumpstart their economy by developing their industrial sector. After the reform and opening policies in 1976, China’s rural populace was allowed to migrate to other provinces in China but could not receive public services due to their rural hukou status. Over forty years later, China’s hukou system has gone through various reforms but still continues to prevent rural migrant workers from receiving an urban hukou. This is due to the discriminatory and decentralized nature of their hukou policies. This master’s thesis will attempt to track the implementation efforts made in China’s most recent attempt to reform their hukou system as outlined in the 2014 National New Urbanization Plan. The research questions state: What progress has been made in Chinese cities towards distributing urban hukous since the 2014 National New Urbanization Plan? And in what ways does the progress vary across different tiered cities? To address the research questions, the researcher collected existing statistical government data from central, provincial, and local governments websites, and secondary literature was gathered from online newspaper websites, US-China business websites, scholarly online articles, and printed books. Hukou implementation efforts were measured in terms of 1) whether rural migrants were given a local hukou or residence permit from 2015-2018; and 2) whether the local government created people-oriented schemes to help rural migrants feel more socially inclusive. The four cities analyzed were Shenzhen, Chengdu, Shijiazhuang, and Luoyang. Shenzhen’s hukou policies were elitist and discriminatory against rural migrant workers since their main focus is to continue developing their technological sector. Chengdu’s policies were more accommodating towards rural migrant workers since the RDA theory allowed Chengdu officials to develop a new type of hukou system to meet their needs. However, the distribution of urban hukous remains incremental in Chengdu. Shijiazhuang’s hukou policies have incrementally improved since 2015 to make it easier for rural migrant workers to receive an urban hukou. Nevertheless, not many rural migrant workers decided to obtain an urban hukou in Shijiazhuang due to their preference to go to more well-known Northeastern cities like Beijing and Tianjin. In comparison, thousands of rural migrant workers have received an urban hukou in Luoyang due to their local government’s lax policies and positive/dependent views of the population. To improve the current 2014 NUP, the study recommended: higher financial investment and resource allocation to second and third tier cities; protection of rural migrant worker’s land rights; greater coordination among central, provincial, and local governments; and an increase in accountability and transparency during the implementation process.

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