Why farmers are reluctant to settle in cities: long-term concerns and immediate worries

■Focus Observation

Gradually breaking down the household registration barriers is only the first step; exploring and establishing an exit mechanism for rural arable land and homestead land is the key to making migrant workers willing to settle in cities and towns.

Recently, the State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Advancing the Reform of the Household Registration System," deciding to establish a unified urban-rural household registration system and to have around 100 million agricultural transfer population and other resident population settle in cities and towns by 2020. However, the "2014 Survey Report on the Current Situation of Migrant Workers in Sichuan Province" recently released by the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Statistics shows that 93.7% of migrant workers are accustomed to urban life, but only 10.7% are willing to settle in cities. The survey covered migrant workers in 9 cities including Chengdu, Zigong, Panzhihua and Deyang.

Although the scope of this survey was limited to Sichuan Province alone, given that Sichuan is a major labor-exporting province, its results are still somewhat representative. Judging from reports in the media in Hunan, Guangdong and other places over the past two days, there are not a few farmers who believe land is more important than an urban household registration. So what is the reason that migrant workers are accustomed to urban life yet unwilling to register their household in the city? Can the new household registration reform policy, on which public opinion has placed high hopes, provide timely help?

Migrant workers' reluctance to transfer their household registration stems mainly from protecting their rural interests and concerns about urban social security. The survey by the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Statistics shows that unresolved elderly care, lack of housing security, and being unable to find work after entering the city are the three problems migrant workers worry about most. If they were to convert to urban household registration, 59.3% of migrant workers hope that the family land would remain unchanged or be transferred for compensation, and 57.4% hope that the rural housing would remain unchanged.

I focused on the State Council's "Opinions on Further Advancing the Reform of the Household Registration System" regarding farmers' land and housing rights and the safeguards after obtaining urban household registration. In the section "Effectively Safeguarding the Legitimate Rights and Interests of the Agricultural Transfer Population and Other Resident Population," it is written:

Improve the rural property rights system. Adhere to the principles of lawfulness, voluntariness and compensation, and guide the agricultural transfer population to transfer land contractual management rights in an orderly manner. Whether farmers who settle in cities should exit the "three rights" (land contractual management rights, homestead land use rights, and the right to distribution of collective income) for compensation should, in accordance with the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Party, be piloted on the premise of respecting farmers' wishes. At the current stage, exiting land contractual management rights, homestead land use rights, and the right to distribution of collective income must not be made a condition for farmers to settle in cities.

Expand the coverage of basic public services. Safeguard the equal right to education of the children who migrate with the agricultural transfer population and other resident population. Fully incorporate farmers who settle in cities into the urban social security system, and standardize the connection of the pension insurance and medical insurance they participated in in rural areas into the urban social security system. Fully incorporate farmers who settle in cities into the urban housing security system, and adopt multiple methods to safeguard the basic housing needs of the agricultural transfer population.

However, these safeguards are only a vision and a blueprint, with no specific implementation measures for now. Against the backdrop that various safeguards for urban workers still have a dual-track or even multi-track system, few people believe that safeguards for migrant workers can quickly be put on an "equal footing" with urban residents. If the central government is determined to cash out state-owned enterprises in stages and batches to replenish a social security, medical insurance and education security fund equally shared by all citizens, then equal social security for all is still foreseeable; otherwise, relying solely on local governments to put up the money, even if there is superficial full coverage, it will be at an extremely low level and cannot relieve people's worries. If that is the case, then no matter how beautiful the vision is, it is only "distant water" that cannot quench the "immediate thirst" of the people who have entered the city.

While "distant water cannot quench immediate thirst" over there, the "immediate worries" remain here -- once the household registration is in the city, what happens to the land and rural housing? The State Council's opinions only say that "at the current stage, exiting land contractual management rights, homestead land use rights, and the right to distribution of collective income must not be made a condition for farmers to settle in cities." What about after settling? Are they still members of the rural collective? If so, how is the dual identity resolved? If not, then the future loss of rights is a worry on farmers' minds.

Farmers are no fools. With no tangible benefits gained from urban household registration and rural property at risk at any time, they will not easily let their household registration enter the city. The Sichuan survey shows that even though nearly 50% have moved to the city with their whole family, and more than 20% have already bought or plan to buy housing in the city, meaning nearly 50% of migrant workers already have some ability to settle down in the city, only 10.7% of farmers are willing to settle in cities. This fully shows that even if farmers have the ability to settle, most still are unwilling to settle in cities out of consideration for their own interests. The most important reason that farmers capable of settling down in cities are unwilling to settle is still the fear that their land and housing property rights in rural areas will not be safeguarded.

If farmers' land and housing do not break free from the bonds of the collective and become property that families can freely dispose of and trade, the situation of farmers being "in the city in body but at home in their hearts" is likely to be very hard to change. In this case, it is very likely to lead to a "amphibian" situation for rural residents -- physically in the city, mentally in the countryside; land and rural housing are not given up even if left abandoned, or they earn money in the city and go back to their hometown to build houses, all of which affect their ability to live and work in peace and contentment in the city. The consequences this phenomenon may lead to are also serious: it directly affects children's schooling on the spot, causing the prolonged phenomenon of left-behind children and left-behind elderly; from yield to quality, it directly affects food security. Because growing grain is a side occupation, working by fits and starts, the soil, seeds and quality are not strictly screened; it directly affects wealth accumulation and settling in the city, because many people still go back to their hometown to build houses after earning money, leaving them vacant year after year, while in the city they have no housing to live in.

It can thus be seen that gradually breaking down the household registration barriers is only the first step; exploring and establishing an exit mechanism for rural arable land and homestead land is the key factor in whether migrant workers are willing to settle in cities and towns. Whether this key factor in household registration reform can move from theory to reality depends on whether land and rural housing can become independent property rights for farmers, and also on whether land and rural housing can establish a unified urban-rural trading market that is not limited to "within the village collective."