Hukou
Hukou is a system of household registration used in the People's Republic of China. The system itself is more properly called huji, and has origins in ancient China; hukou is the registration of an individual in the system. A household registration record officially identifies a person as a permanent resident of an area and includes identifying information such as name, parents, spouse and date of birth. A hukou can also refer to a family register in many contexts since the household register is issued per family, and usually includes the births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and moves, of all members in the family.
The system descends in part from ancient Chinese household registration systems. The hukou system also influenced similar systems within the public administration structures of neighboring East Asian countries, such as Japan and Korea, as well as the Southeast Asian country Vietnam. In South Korea, the hoju system was abolished in January 2008. While unrelated in origin, propiska in the Soviet Union and resident registration in Russia had a similar purpose and served as a model for modern China's hukou system.
Due to its connection to social programs provided by the government, which assigns benefits based on agricultural and non-agricultural residency status, the hukou system is sometimes likened to a form of caste system. It has been the source of much inequality over the decades since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, as urban residents received benefits that ranged from retirement pension to education to health care, while rural citizens were often left to fend for themselves. Since 1978, the central government has undertaken reforms of the system in response to protests and a changing economic system.
Nomenclature: ''huji'' vs. ''hukou''
The formal name for the system is huji. Within the huji system, a hukou is the registered residency status of a particular individual in this system. However, the term hukou is used colloquially to refer to the entire system, and it has been adopted by English-language audiences to refer to both the huji system and an individual's hukou.Household registration in mainland China
The hukou system has origins in China that date back to ancient times, but the system in its current form came into being with the 1958 People's Republic of China Hukou Registration Regulation.Until very recently, each citizen was classified in an agricultural or non-agricultural hukou and further categorized by location of origin. This two-fold organization structure was linked to social policy, and those residents who held non-agricultural hukou status received benefits not available to their rural counterparts, and vice versa.
Internal migration was also tightly controlled by the central government, and only in the past few decades have these restrictions been loosened. While this system has played a major role in China's fast economic growth, hukou has also promoted and aggravated social stratification and contributed significantly to the deprivation of many of China's rural workers.
In recent years, steps have been taken to alleviate the inequalities promulgated by the hukou system, with the most recent major reforms announced in March and July 2014, which included a provision that eliminated the division between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou status.
Rationale and function
In the middle of the 20th century, China's weak industrial sector and food security needs meant that mass migration was a threat to stability in both urban and rural areas. By restricting peasants' ability to move, the system aimed to ensure sufficient agricultural production and to maintain social stability in urban areas with limited work opportunities. In its original legislation, the hukou system was justified as created to"...maintain social order, protect the rights and interests of citizens and to be of service to the establishment of socialism".The central government asserted that because rural areas had greater capacity to absorb and use excess labor, the majority of the population should be concentrated in these regions. Furthermore, free movement of people was considered dangerous, as it would lead to overpopulation of cities and could threaten agricultural production. Under the hukou system, the rural population was structured to serve as support for urban industrialization, both in agricultural production and workers for state owned businesses.
The hukou system served other purposes as well. After establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party enacted policies based on the notions of stability and rapid modernization, and the hukou system was no exception. Urban areas have historically been where authoritarian regimes are most vulnerable: to combat this, the central government gave preferential treatment to city residents, hoping to prevent uprisings against the state, particularly in the early years when it was especially susceptible to rebellion. The structure of the hukou system also bolstered the power of the central government over its urban citizens: by making city residents dependent upon the government for all aspects of daily life, the central government could force obedience from problematic individuals.
The central government's efforts to contain migration has been a major factor in the rapid development of the Chinese economy. Their tight check on migration into urban areas has helped prevent the emergence of a number of problems faced by many other developing countries. For example, the appearance of slums outside of urban areas due to a massive influx of individuals searching for work has not been an issue, nor have poor health conditions due to high population density. And regardless of its other imperfections, the hukou system's ability to maintain stability has contributed to China's economic rise.
History
The legacy of the Chinese hukou system may be traced back to the pre-dynastic era, as early as the 21st century BC. In its early forms, the household registration system was used primarily for the purposes of taxation and conscription, as well as regulating migration. The xiangsui and baojia systems were early models of the hukou system. The xiangsui system, established under the Western Zhou dynasty was used as a method of organizing and categorizing urban and rural land. The function of the baojia system, propagated by Lord Shang Yang of the 4th century BC, was to create a system of accountability within groups of citizens: if one person within the group violated the strict rules in place, everyone in the group suffered. This structure was later utilized and expanded upon during the Qin dynasty for the purposes of taxation, population control, and conscription.According to the Examination of Hukou in Wenxian Tongkao published in 1317, there was a minister for population management during the Zhou dynasty named Simin, who was responsible for recording births, deaths, emigrations and immigrations. The Rites of Zhou notes that three copies of documents were kept in different places. The administrative divisions in Zhou dynasty were a function of the distance to the state capital. The top division nearest the capital was named Dubi, top division in more distant areas were named Xiang and Sui. Families were organized under the Baojia system.
Guan Zhong, Prime Minister of the Qi state 7th century BC, imposed different taxation and conscription policies on different areas. In addition, Guan Zhong also banned immigration, emigration, and separation of families without permission. In the Book of Lord Shang, Shang Yang also described his policy restricting immigrations and emigrations.
Xiao He, the first Chancellor of the Han dynasty, added the chapter of Hu as one of the nine basic law codes of Han, and established the hukou system as the basis of tax revenue and conscription.
The first formal codification of the hukou system arose at the end of the Qing dynasty with the 1911 Huji Law. Although movement was nominally free under this statute, registration of individuals with the government was required, and it was used by the government to pursue communist forces and as a basis for taxation for the funding of wars. The law also expanded upon the baojia system, and was intended to establish a sense of stability.
In the period following the fall of the Qing dynasty, China was ruled by various actors, each of which employed some system of household or personal identification. During the Japanese occupation, the Japanese employed a system used to identify those under their rule and to fund their war effort. Similarly, the Kuomintang utilized the system to monitor the activities of their opponents, the Chinese Communist Party, and the Chinese Communist Party in turn used a system called lianbao, which bundled families into groups of five to aid tracking and impede counterrevolutionaries.
1949–1978: Maoist era
At the time of its founding in 1949, the People's Republic of China was a highly agricultural nation. About 89% of its citizens lived in rural areas – about 484 million resided in the countryside, versus about 58 million in the city. However, with efforts to increase industrialization and Soviet help, more and more rural residents flocked to the cities in search of better economic opportunities: between 1957 and 1960, there was a 90.9% increase in the urban labor force.A major objective of the hukou system implemented by the central government was thus to control the stream of resources moving away from the agricultural sector. According to academic Kam Wing Chan, the hukou system effectively "forbid the peasantry to exit agriculture." The instability and high rates of movement that characterized the years following the establishment of the nation impeded the central government's plan for society and the economy. Although the hukou system in its current form was not officially brought into being until 1958, the years preceding its establishment were characterized by growing efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to assert control over its populace. In 1950, the Minister of Public Security, Luo Ruiqing, published a statement detailing his vision for the implementation of the hukou system in the new era. By 1954, rural and urban citizens had been registered with the state, and rigorous regulations on the conversion of hukou status had already been implemented. These required that applicants have paperwork that documented employment, acceptance to a university, or immediate family relations in the city to be eligible. In March of the same year, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Labor issued the Joint Directive to Control Blind Influx of Peasants into Cities, which proclaimed that henceforth, all employment of rural workers in city firms would be controlled entirely by local labor bureaus.
On 9 January 1958, the People's Republic of China Hukou Registration Regulation was signed into law. This divided the populace into nongmin, with an agricultural hukou, and shimin, with a non-agricultural hukou, and grouped all citizens by locality. The key difference, however, lay in the distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou status. Because the central government prioritized industrialization, state welfare programs, which were tied to hukou status, heavily favored urban residents; holders of agricultural hukous were unable to access these benefits and were saddled with inferior welfare policies. Furthermore, transfer of hukou status was highly restricted, with official quotas at 0.15-0.2% per year and actual conversion rates at about 1.5%. In the following years, government oversight over the movement of people was expanded. In 1964, greater limits were imposed on migration to big cities, particularly major ones like Beijing and Shanghai, and in 1977 these regulations were furthered. Throughout this era, the hukou system was used as an instrument of the command economy, helping the central government implement its plan for industrializing the nation.