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Migrant workers' dilemma: "in the city but not of the city"
身在城市却不属于这座城市的人
ZY: China’s breakneck economic growth over the past decades has seen an explosion in the number of rural residents hoping to better their chances in cities and towns. At the end of 2011, and for the first time, China counted more urban than rural dwellers. Now for more on the urbanization drive, we are joined in the studio by my colleague Wu Haojun.
Q1: It took China just 3 decades to really transform itself into an urban society. Can you tell us how those newly-settled in cities have fared?
A: Yes, indeed. Over the past decade in China, this rapid transformation has been felt everywhere, especially in mega-cities like Shanghai and Beijing. To put things into perspective, by the end of 2012 over 52 percent of China’s total population were urban dwellers. That’s a leap of 12 percent in only 10 years. And there’s no doubt about who the majority of the newcomers are. 2011 figures show that 43.5 percent of city dwellers did not have a corresponding city hukou or household registration. And 87% of them are migrant workers from the countryside.
And to answer your question there, being an urban resident is vastly different from actually having a city hukou, which some would describe as being a "proper city folk". For one, there’s the income disparity. Of course, there’s no direct causal relationship here, but here’s the reality. Though migrant workers’ average income per month rose by over 21 percent in 2011, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, they still earn less than one third of what their peers with a city household registration earn.
Q2: Can you tell us more about how the hukou system figures in here. And especially both the visible and not so apparent benefits associated with having a city hukou.
A: Let’s take Beijing as an example here. First, education, it’s really the ONE issue migrant parents prioritize above all else. If you don’t have a Beijing hukou and want a quality education in a public school, you’d have to pay the so-called "temporary schooling fee", which is banned under official regulations but accepted as a common practice. It comes down to about a total of 57,000 yuan in extra fees.
Despite the heavy fee, it still doesn’t grant you the right to sit the college entrance exam in Beijing. In turn this means you’re subject to much higher university admission standards back home. But it doesn’t end with education. You also can’t get a marriage certificate in Beijing. And if you want to purchase property, you can buy one and only one property if you can show you’ve been paying 5+ years of tax and social security. Same goes for owning a car. And I’m really just talking about the migrant workers who’ve done well for themselves here. For many who are just trying to make ends meet and don’t have the kind of money even to enter the city’s social security scheme, it’s difficult for them to get access to benefits such as health insurance that city dwellers enjoy.
