Small city, big solution? China's hukou system reform and its potential impacts

Abstract

The most significant move towards breaking down the barrier of China's existing household registration system (or hukou in Chinese) was taken in late 2001, when the Chinese government allowed its peasants to become legal urban residents in all small cities and towns. This is a very important hukou reform, and its impacts will be enormous and multidimensional. The first impact is on the existing occupational segregation between migrants and local workers. This paper argues that both the phenomenon of occupational segregation and migration settlement related to native place ties will become less relevant due to the small-city-free policy. In addition, it addresses the potential impacts of this..