Rural Migrant Workers' Integration into City under the Reform of Household Registration (Hukou) System in China--A Case Study of Zhenjiang City

摘要

The hukou (household registration) system plays an important role in China’s internal migration process. It divides Chinese people into rural (agricultural) hukou holders and urban (non-agricultural) hukou holders. Public services and social welfare are provided based on hukou status, those rural migrants who move to urban area for better job and more fortune but still keep their rural hukou status have no equal access to public services and social welfare that provided to urban hukou holders. Chinese governments carry out a series of reforms on hukou system aiming to enable more migrants convert to urban hukou and obtain the equal rights in the city as existing residents. Integration, a key concept to describe the experiences of migrants in the other culture and other society, has a different meaning under the context of China. The most effective way for rural migrant workers in China to achieve integration into the urban society is converting to urban hukou.So this study mainly aims at examining the effect of current Hukou reform on promoting rural migrant workers to achieve equal rights in the city by using Zhenjiang City as a case study. The result of statistical analysis indicates that under the more relaxed hukou policy, most respondents are not willing to convert to urban hukou. Their age, education, origin, housing type and farmland compensation are significantly correlated with their participation intentions in Hukou reform. The in-depth interview reveals that Hukou reform in Zhenjiang City has limited effect on rural migrant workers.