How to Break Down the Welfare Barriers for Farmers Settling in Cities

A "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporter recently went to Anhui, Sichuan, Hubei and other places to investigate and found that most pilot small and medium-sized cities have fully opened up urban residency for farmers, but before the "zero threshold," farmers' willingness to settle is generally not high. In one county town, only just over 200 people converted from agricultural to non-agricultural status in 2015. The reason farmers are not very willing to settle in cities involves rational considerations on their part.

First, in recent years, with the development of the market economy, many welfare benefits attached to household registration have gradually weakened or even been abolished. The gap between rural household registration and non-agricultural household registration is no longer as huge as it was in the 1970s and 1980s, and its appeal to farmers is itself weakening.

Second, farmers have concerns about urban social security. If household registration is transferred to the city, can old-age security be guaranteed? Can employment be resolved? What about housing? These issues all influence farmers' choices.

Third, farmers still have doubts about how to handle the "three rights" after entering the city: land contractual management rights, homestead use rights, and collective income distribution rights. Land is the farmer's "protective treasure," and housing is the farmer's main property. Because it remains unclear how these assets left in rural areas will be handled after settling in the city, many farmers would rather leave land uncultivated and rural houses vacant, shuttling back and forth between the city and the countryside, than move their household registration out of the countryside.

If farmers are to be encouraged to actively settle in cities, the first step should be to truly break down the household registration barriers so that farmers can enjoy more welfare benefits in cities. In addition, a mechanism for exiting rural contracted land and homestead land should be gradually explored and established, revitalizing rural land assets and "decoupling" farmers from the land. Only by turning these into property income through formal channels will farmers possibly consider giving up rural household registration and voluntarily settling in cities.