New residence rule gives hope

ELEVEN provinces in China announced plans last week to abolish the term "rural residents" and "urban residents" and create a unified management system on permanent residence registration, hukou.

The move comes after a recent policy change disclosed by Deputy Minister of Public Security Liu Jinguo. Liu said last week the government will further loosen restrictions on changing registered permanent residence from rural areas to medium-sized and large cities.

The changes are made in a hope to address the rural-urban wealth divide. Western China is trapped in poverty, while east coast residents' lives have improved with economic development.

China has more than 900 million farmers and 400 million urban residents. But farmers have lower status, fewer resources, less education and social welfare.

Statistics indicate farmers' per capita income in 2003 was 2,622 yuan. Urban residents' per capita income was almost four times as much — 8,500 yuan.

Urban shift

Farmers want to move to cities to get better jobs, education or housing. But the residence registration system, called hukou, restricts people from moving freely around the country.

"Population movement is an inevitable social phenomenon," said Huang Keke, a researcher at the Institute of World History Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

China's population flow has generally benefited the country's social development, said the researcher.

That's why the government is tackling rural migrants' employment, residence, social security, health and education problems, Liu Jingguo said.

"It is imperative that we see a gradual equal-employment system developing between all residents," he added.

Liu said the next steps in managing nationwide migration will be people-centred. This means relevant authorities should change their focus from merely "managing" to "managing and providing services".

However, Liu did not specify whether or when the capital city Beijing which now has 14.92 million residents, including 3.599 million migrants will have an unified hukou system.

Rural welfare system * Less than 20 per cent of the rural labour force have pension schemes. * Rural medical insurance only covers about 20 per cent of the whole population. * Minimum living standard assistance system is only in effect in some provinces, most coastal. And the amount of money farmers get is less than urban residents. 21ST

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disclose: 透露
imperative: 必要的
flag up: 强调
loosen: 放松

from:http://www.21stcentury.com.cn/article.php?sid=21233