Focus

A history of hukou

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-29 07:57

BEIJING - Loosely inspired by the Soviet Union's internal passports, China introduced its hukou system 60 years ago to control the flow of rural residents to cities, according to Yao Xiulan, a law professor at Shenzhen University.

Following a provisional regulation issued by the Ministry of Public Security, the policy was rolled out nationwide in 1951, wrote Yao in her paper entitled On the Development and Reform of China's Hukou System, which was published in Legal Science, in May 2004.

Two years later, the Government Administration Council - now the State Council - issued an emergency notice to curb the "blind flow of farmers into cities".

Hukou was not separated into rural and urban categories until January 1958, when the central government imposed strict restrictions on villagers moving to urban areas.

On Aug 14, 1964, the State Council passed its first regulation on hukou transfers, as proposed by the Ministry of Public Security, while in 1975 articles on the freedom of migration were removed from the nation's constitution.

Central authorities approved further regulations to enhance the supervision of hukou transfers in November 1977, stating temporary workers or contracted employees from the countryside were ineligible for urban hukou. The rules were the first to mention the "hukou transfer quota", setting the limit at 0.15 percent of the total rural population.

Following the "culturalrevolution" (1966-76), economic reforms led to large-scale population flow, with millions of migrant workers flooding into cities.

The imbalanced welfare offered to people living and working in the same place soon sharpened the conflicts between the "hukou divide". This prompted the State Council to issue a notice in October 1984 that allowed rural hukou holders with fixed addresses or long-term employment contracts or the ability to operate a business to transfer their hukou, under the condition they can provide their own food rations.

When urban hukou was still hot property and the country's economy was much less developed, the status granted holders fixed food rations from the State. Farmers, meanwhile, had to submit a grain to the authorities before they could get their own food. This meant cities were guaranteed sufficient food, while those in the countryside were reliant on each year's harvest.

Food rations were eventually scrapped in 1993. Two years later, the government also terminated its policy of guaranteeing college students jobs after graduation.

China Daily