Why does opening up household registration in small cities mean so little?

In order to help farmers obtain equal rights, it is necessary to abolish the identity discrimination aimed specifically at farmers; this is progress. And in order to support agricultural development more effectively, it is necessary to identify farmers' status; this is even greater progress.

Reform of the household registration system is meant to establish a population registration system that is relatively simple to operate, contains no identity discrimination, and can provide accurate information for social and economic management. The State Council's opinions on household registration system reform released this time have taken a big step in this direction. The biggest highlight of these reform opinions is that they abolish the discrimination against farmers in past household registration management and provide clear thinking for clearing away some unreasonable provisions in current laws and regulations. I believe that in implementing these reform opinions in practice, the following issues must be grasped.

Basis for household registration: can it be further simplified

From a long-term perspective, the core of the new system should be a population registration system based on place of residence, that is, the main criterion for registering a person as belonging to a certain city and region should be where his or her permanent residence is. More specifically, as long as a person enjoys housing in a city (whether rented or owned with property rights), and the construction of this housing conforms to the government's planning, and the structure, area, and quality of the housing meet government standards, then the elements”: housing, employment, and income, this is relatively complicated; the “points system” is even more complicated and not very scientific. This requires city management to do a good job in housing development planning. Houses are built for people to live in; once people live in them, how can you not give them household registration? If a retired billionaire buys a house in Shanghai, you will not register him for household registration? This makes no sense. If a farming household has already lived in the city for several years, and the descendants have also become accustomed to city life, and they have rented housing, or sold rural land at a reasonable price and bought a house in the city, can you not give them household registration? Some people worry that this single method will produce household registration speculation, but I think this method will reduce speculation. If a city government cannot even do housing planning, what else can it do? If it really cannot do it, how can it truly control population? What meaning does the household registration threshold have?

The popular view holds that absorbing one person into a large city will increase costs by several tens of thousands of yuan, and therefore household registration migration into large cities should be restricted. I think this is a very vague statement. The reality is that about 20% of the farmers in China who go to cities to work already have stable housing in large and medium-sized cities. The new occupations and incomes of these agricultural migrant populations are very stable, and they are urban taxpayers. They are also mostly young and middle-aged, so their old-age care and medical treatment will not create any burden for local finances. Whether or not the government gives them household registration, they still have to enjoy many urban public services, and the government cannot save this money. Registering these migrant farmers and their families as urban residents has one hundred benefits and no harm.

Abolishing household registration differences: can the “gold content” of household registration be unified

After the urban-rural household registration distinction is completely “eliminated,” can the agricultural migrant population enjoy the same rights as urban residents in the place where they live? Will there be an internal “dual structure” among residents with the same household registration? This requires serious discussion.

First, there is the issue of equality in “minimum living guarantees.” At present, the guarantee amount for rural “five-guarantee households” and the “minimum living guarantee” standard for farmers already implemented nationwide are mostly lower than the urban “minimum living guarantee” level. After urban and rural household registration is unified, if a “minimum living guarantee” system is established entirely according to urban standards, it will increase the fiscal burden. A flexible method is to place the determination of the “minimum living guarantee” standard at the county-level administrative region, unify the “minimum living guarantee” standard for all residents within the administrative region, and at the same time implement the principle of “old people according to the old method, new people according to the new method.” When determining subsidies for farmers, consideration can be given to deducting the non-monetary portion of farmers' household business income. If existing poverty alleviation funds and “five-guarantee household” funds are arranged in a unified way, the additional funds needed for “minimum living guarantee” reform should not exceed 20 billion yuan. It should be noted even more that most of the agricultural migrant population already in cities are not people receiving “minimum living guarantees.”

Second, there is the issue of unifying old-age security. With accelerated economic development and growth in fiscal revenue, the difficulty of resolving this issue is unexpectedly decreasing. The state now has the ability to merge rural old-age insurance with urban old-age insurance. The agricultural migrant population will, according to their own circumstances, enter different levels of the urban old-age insurance sequence, and government subsidies for the “new rural pension” will be adjusted later according to development conditions.

Third, there is the issue of medical security. Basic medical security should be unified between urban and rural areas. The country is now implementing rural “new cooperative medical care,” and the state has spent a considerable amount of money, laying the foundation. It should be noted that some urban residents currently also lack medical security, so the rural method can be introduced into cities to form a nationally unified basic medical security system. On this basis, it can then be divided into several levels to reflect differences. In this respect, the experience of the Taiwan region can be studied.

Fourth, after urban and rural household registration is completely unified, how will the state implement policies to support agriculture and farmers? This difficult issue has not yet received sufficient attention, but in fact it will show its importance later. Once urban and rural household registration is completely unified, in principle it will no longer be so easy to identify who is a farmer, and at least one “legal” identifying marker will be missing. However, if agricultural producers are to be helped, especially if agricultural producers are to be helped through “direct subsidies,” then there should be a legal definition of “farmer.”