Shifting barriers
The government reforms a socially divisive system, warily
THE pillars of social control are flaking at the edges. First came the relaxation in October of draconian family-planning restrictions. Now it is the turn of the household-registration, or hukou, system, which determines whether a person may enjoy subsidised public services in urban areas—rural hukou holders are excluded. On December 12th the government announced what state media trumpeted as the biggest shake-up in decades of the hukou policy, which has aggravated a huge social divide in China’s cities and curbed the free flow of labour. The pernicious impact of the system, however, will long persist.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Shifting barriers”
China December 19th 2015
From the December 19th 2015 edition
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