In August this year, the Personnel Bureau of
Beijing
unveiled a new regulation: It is no longer necessary for a unit in
Beijing to add the requirement that employees have a registered
permanent residence in Beijing when it advertises for new staff in
the media.
Talking about reforms in the domicile system, Yang Yonghe, director
of the Office for Management of Personnel Market under the
Personnel Bureau of Beijing, said under the new regulation,
enterprises have more choice when employing staff, and talented
persons who don’t have a registered permanent residence in Beijing
can enjoy more opportunities to compete with local citizens on an
equal footing.
The reform of the system of residence registration is a certain
thing, Yang noted. For several years, opening the residence
registration system so that more skilled personnel can work in the
city has become a main task for boosting Beijing’s economy and
development. The reform will break the traditional pattern of
residence registration featuring talented persons belonging to a
certain unit, region or province, and create an environment for a
rational flow of human resources.
Yang also stressed that enforcement of the new regulation does not
mean relaxation of domicile control and arbitrary employment of
people coming from other provinces. Those who don’t have registered
permanent residence in Beijing but hope to seek a job in the city
must meet the requirements of the Detailed Rules of Beijing on
Employing Talented Persons From Other Parts of the Country.
But Zeng Xiangquan from Renmin University of China stressed that no
matter whether this reform means the relaxation of domicile control
or not, it is a signal that Beijing is opening its door to skilled
personnel in other regions.
Zeng does not think this new measure will affect the employment of
Beijing residents. He explained that it is a way of complementation
between Beijing and other regions in the use of human resources.
Therefore, the high-tech personnel from outside Beijing may bring
technologies and managerial expertise that Beijing badly needs but
doesn’t have.
Entering the 21st century, more and more rural laborers have come
to cities and towns seeking jobs, which gravely affects the urban
residence registration system. Apart from this, as the pace of
urbanization accelerates, an appeal for the reform of urban
domicile system has been on the rise.
In
July this year, Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei
Province, announced that it will relax control over domicile in
the city and published detailed rules in the media. Ma Jinghua,
deputy director of the Division of Residency Administration under
Shijiazhuang Public Security Bureau, said those, whose conditions
accord with the seven new regulations, could get registered
permanent residence in the city.
One month before Shijiazhuang’s reform, Hangzhou
began to handle the procedure of domicile change online. In the
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, an identity card will replace the
function of registered permanent residence. In the city of Ningbo,
the difference between urban and rural residence registrations has
been cancelled. As early as 1996, people who bought houses or ran a
business in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area were able to get a blue
registered residence card, although it was slightly different from
the local residents’ red one.
In
March this year, the State Council approved the Proposal of the
Ministry of Public Security on Promoting the Reform of Domicile
System in Small Cities and Towns. According to the document, there
will be no quota control over registration of permanent residence
in small cities and towns. To this action, Beijing’s media said ice
on the domicile system began to melt, so people would enjoy more
freedom in selecting their residence.
Troubles Caused by Rigid Domicile System
Li’s parents were native Beijing people. Answering the call of the
Party of “going to and constructing the most difficult places,”
they went to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the 1960s, after
graduation from university. They married and had a son. After
taking local backward living and education conditions into account,
they sent their son, Li, back to Beijing to live with his
grandparents.
At
school, Li had to pay higher tuition fees than others, because he
did not have a registered permanent residence of Beijing. Worse
still, in the senior middle school entrance examination, Li got the
high mark required by a major senior middle school, but he was not
accepted because of his domicile.
He
was even refused entry by a common school. After half a term, a
school in the suburbs finally accepted him. The low level of
education in the school dampened his enthusiasm for study, and his
school results dwindled.
Hearing this, his parents brought him back to
Xinjiang. Soon afterwards he returned to Beijing to study in a
middle school.
Without a registered permanent Beijing residence, he was not
allowed to sit for the university entrance examination in Beijing.
Passing the examination in Xinjiang, a local university accepted
him, but he was not satisfied. His hardship affected his school
results and made him depressed and melancholy.
Graduating from university, Li worked in Xinjiang for several
years. Then he decided to go back to Beijing for career
development. Also for reasons of domicile, he and his girlfriend
have little choice of jobs. They also cannot have the insurance
that units give their staff. They can’t purchase cheaper apartments
offered by the Beijing municipal government to local residents.
They are unable to get low-interest home loans given to employees
in Beijing. They even can’t buy a monthly public bus pass. Living
and working in Beijing, they have to make double efforts and pay
more than others.
Du
came to Beijing and worked as a waitress in a restaurant at the age
of 19. After 10 years, she opened a restaurant of her own. Her
success story was reported many times by the media, including China
Central TV. To offer job opportunities to her hometown villagers,
Du recruited employees from her hometown.
But this made her restaurant the focus for check-up during every
major holiday occasion. Feeling offended, she sometimes quarreled
with law enforcement officials. Talking about this, Du looks
puzzled. “We abide by the law in running a business, why are we
discriminated against?”
Wang Ming, a demobilized soldier, came from a small village in
Sichuan Province, west China. He is employed by a construction
group in Beijing. His fellow villagers said his wife, Dong Xiaomei,
was lucky as she married a man working in Beijing, and their child
could take a job in the city when he grew up.
However, for 10 years after they married, the couple lived
separately.
Eight years ago, Dong came to Beijing with their child to live with
her husband. Without the registered permanent residence, the couple
had to pay several thousand yuan annually as “donation” to a school
their child attended. Last year they had to send their child back
to their hometown for schooling, because they can’t afford 10,000
yuan annually for his senior middle school education in Beijing,
and their child will not be allowed to participate in college
entrance examination in Beijing. Worse still, Dong can’t find a
job, mainly because she does not have registered permanent Beijing
residence. There are more than 20,000 demobilized soldiers in
Beijing’s construction sector, like Wang. Most of them have wives
in the countryside, and share the same story as Wang.
An
Urgent Task
Article 90 of China’s Constitution promulgated in 1954 stipulated
that citizens had the right to change their residence. On January
9, 1958, the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress
promulgated the Regulations on Residence Management and
Registration. It stipulates that citizens who move from the
countryside to cities shall have one of the following three
certificates:
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Certificate of employment by a labor administration of a city;
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Certificate of admission by a school;
?
Certificate of approval for moving by a residence registration
administration of a city.
The citizens’ right to freely change their residence, stipulated in
the Constitution of 1954, then ceased to be effective. By then
China’s domicile control system was formed. In the following years,
the Constitution was revised several times, but the issue of
residence registration was not involved.
The domicile system divided citizens into several groups, including
agricultural residence, non-agricultural residence, permanent
residence and temporary residence. More than 10 other stipulations
involving education, material supply and other treatments have
relations with the domicile system.
An
outcome of planned economy, the domicile system restricted farmers
from entering cities, which guaranteed a labor force in rural
areas. This ensured a supply of low-priced industrial materials,
stabilized urban population and maintained high productivity at a
low cost. In short, it played a key role in China’s agricultural
and industrial development at that time.
After China introduced the reform and opening-up policy, its
economy has developed in full swing. The old domicile system failed
to keep abreast of the era’s progress, impeding the advancement of
agricultural modernization and urbanization.
Under the system, the social demand in urban areas is decided
through control of its population. This practice has slowed the
pace of urban development and weakened self-regulation of cities.
As a result, the municipal administration can’t meet market
demands.
During the 20 years after the founding the People’s Republic of
China, the number of transregional migrant farmers was less than 5
million. Youth sought their spouses within 25 square km, resulting
in the decrease of population quality. The introduction of domicile
system also restricted the population flow. Farmers trying to find
jobs in cities require not only courage and skills, but also
numerous documents and certificates. To get a temporary residence
card in cities, they have to pay money. Couples with one partner
holding an urban registered permanent residence and the other with
a rural one, have to live in two separate places.
To
guarantee employment of citizens with urban registered permanent
residence, many cities have defined jobs open to people from
outside. This has curbed the flow of the labor force and talented
persons, and is not conducive to the establishment of a unified
labor market in the country. In other words, the current domicile
system has become an obstacle for allocation of human resources in
line with market demands.
With China’s sustained economic development, the gap between urban
and rural areas has been shrinking and the transit population is on
the rise. The present domicile system can’t effectively administer
the transit population anymore. China’s fifth census conducted in
2000 discovered a severe fault in residence registration. For
instance, in Shaanxi Province, 2 million people should register
residence there, but did not. In Hunan Province, this number was
near 10 million. In Chongqing Municipality, however, residence
registrations of 130,000 deceased people were not cancelled. In
central and west China, a considerable number of households have
moved to other places, but left their registered permanent
residence in the original place.
With urban citizens’ priorities continuously shrinking, such as the
supply of grain and edible oil, domicile is not very important
anymore. Qian Aimei, director of the Residency Administration
Division of Shijiazhuang Public Security Bureau, said when
registration of residence is not a crucial element in people lives,
the system can hardly stop them changing their residences. Under
such a situation, opening residence registration will be conducive
to population management, Qian added.
Reform: A Stable and Gradual Course
Following the reform of residence registration in 1999,
Shijiazhuang began another reform on residence registration this
August, Qian said. The reform this time focuses on two aspects.
Firstly, out of humanitarian considerations, infants’ permanent
residence registration can follow that of their mother or father.
Those who want to change their residence between husband and wife
or between parents and children are allowed.
Secondly, it is considered from the angle of absorbing investment
and talented persons. When a person from another province reaches
the standard set by the city in investment, business operation or
commercial housing purchase, they can apply for a permanent
residence registered in the city.
The reform this time is undertaken in light of the city’s real
situation. Shijiazhuang will seek its own road in domicile reform,
Qian said.
Compared with previous reforms, measures adopted this time are more
drastic, canceling the following requirements for those who want to
be there as a permanent resident.
?
They have been married for more than five years, with a partner who
is a native of Shijiazhuang, living in the city for more than one
year;
?
They have invested 500,000 yuan for more than one year in the
city;
?
They are a businessperson who pays tax of 50,000 yuan annually or
100,000 yuan within three years.
?
They buy a house with a floor space of more than 100 square meters
or spend over 200,000 yuan on it.
This means the threshold for entering the city will be lowered
greatly, Qian concluded.
However, some people aired their different opinions on the reform
of residence registration. An official from the city government
expressed these worries: The increase in population will put more
pressure on employment, security and traffic in the city. In
addition, to develop small cities and limit the expansion of large
cities conform to the requirement of the State Council.
Officials from the city’s education committee have more worries,
because population expansion will inevitably increase the number of
school-age children. Are there sufficient schools, facilities and
teachers for them?
Regarding these worries, Mayor Zang Shengye believes the reform of
residence registration is by no means a disaster. He said what
people think about most is their profits. When having a city’s
registered permanent residence no longer means preferential
treatment, people will not be interested in it. The attraction of
Shijiazhuang is not its residence system, but the opportunity to
make money.
Zang is confident about the reform, saying it would raise the level
of urbanization, promote economic development of the city and
increase the quality of its population.
(chinadaily.com.cn
09/12/2001)