Participation rate in social insurance for agricultural household registration is nearly 20 percentage points lower than for non-agricultural household registration

"Public Opinion Blue Book: China Livelihood Survey Report (2015)" shows

Insurance participation rate for agricultural household registration is nearly 20 percentage points lower than for non-agricultural household registration

China Workers' Network News (reporter Yang Zhaokui) According to the "Public Opinion Blue Book: China Livelihood Survey Report (2015)" recently jointly released by the Public Opinion Research Laboratory of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Social Sciences Academic Press, more than 70% of respondents have insurance coverage, with medical insurance and pension insurance having the highest participation rates. The insurance participation rate of respondents with non-agricultural household registration is significantly higher than that of respondents with agricultural household registration.

The report shows that 73.9% of respondents participate in the “five insurances and one housing fund” (or the “three insurances and one housing fund”). Among respondents with insurance, 95.4% have participated in medical insurance, and 76.5% have participated in pension insurance, relatively high participation rates compared with other insurances. The investigators cross-analyzed whether respondents participate in the “five insurances and one housing fund” (or the “three insurances and one housing fund”) with household registration and found that the proportion of respondents with non-agricultural household registration participating in the “five insurances and one housing fund” (or the “three insurances and one housing fund”) is 81.2%, significantly higher than that of respondents with agricultural household registration (62.7%).

In response to the problems found in the survey, the report recommends expanding the coverage of social security, especially establishing and improving the social security system in vast rural areas. Special attention should be given to migrant workers and agricultural workers as well as low-income or unemployed groups, bringing the people most in need of social security into the social security system; breaking down the urban-rural household registration barrier, narrowing regional gaps, and establishing a systematic, diversified and integrated social security system so that every member of society can enjoy the fruits of the country's economic development.

According to the reporter's incomplete statistics, more than 20 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country, including Guizhou, Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Hubei and Chongqing, have issued opinions on household registration system reform for their regions. The above opinions all clarify policies for further relaxing household registration migration in their regions, and propose abolishing the distinction between the nature of agricultural household registration and non-agricultural household registration and establishing a unified urban-rural household registration system.

Taking Chongqing as an example, in September this year, the city issued the "Implementation Opinions of the Chongqing Municipal Government on Further Advancing Household Registration System Reform", requiring the distinction between the nature of agricultural household registration and non-agricultural household registration to be eliminated, with the whole city uniformly registering urban and rural residents as “resident household registration”. At the same time, policy standards linked to the nature of household registration should be gradually abolished, policies on education, health and family planning, employment, social security, housing, land and population statistics should be cleaned up and improved, and a unified urban-rural social security and public service system should be gradually established. The "Opinions" also clarify that by 2020, Chongqing's urbanization rate of permanent residents will reach more than 65%, and the urbanization rate of registered residents will reach about 50%.