The State Council of the People’s Republic of China recently issued a report on the estimated progress of Hukou system reform (关于进一步推进户籍制度改革的意见). In this report, it is estimated that the 100 million farmers with rural status who work in the city will obtain rural Hukou in 2020. However, articles of Economic Information Daily (经考济参报) pointed that the uncertain benefits of changing Hukou status from rural to urban make rural farmers maintain their original Hukou, and that some citizens even want to change their urban Hukou “backwards” into rural ones in order to obtain the benefits, as the benefits of rural Hukou is more certain and substantial than those of the urban ones. This phenomenon, dubbed Reversed Urbanization, can be seen in some regions in Zhejiang, Henan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Jiangxi.
Ruan Wen-Guang, a government official in charge of the hukou system in Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department, said that with the rapid economic development, the booming of urban and rural construction, and the ongoing readjustment of social benefits, the interest chain behind rural hukou becomes longer and appealing compared with that behind urban hukou. The willingness to transfer into urban hukou and settle in cities will be further decreasing.
Full article in Chinese: http://www.rmzxb.com.cn/zszq/gc/2014/11/04/402324.shtml
