Analysis Of The Primary Reason Of China s Urban...

Qianer Wu SPEA-V161 Solution paper Hukou System, the Primary Reason of China’s Urban Overpopulation Poverty, a state in which income is insufficient to provide basic necessities, is a worldwide problem that relates to the living conditions of people and the economic growth of a country. Despite the remarkable increase in per capital income and decline in poverty, China still faces many challenges to reduce urban overpopulation and wealth gap caused by state policies such as Hukou System, a household registration system which requires every Chinese citizen to be officially and constantly registered with the Hukou police from birth and reduces the possibility of geographic and social mobility. In 1958, Chinese special household†¦show more content†¦Moreover, the Hukou system largely prevents the migration from rural to urban by restricting residential areas of citizens. It makes rural people more difficult to make a living in progressive cities and flouring environment. The differentiated treatments for urban and rural areas mean limiting the growth of economics and the beginning of the wealth gap between rural area and urban area. As the developing of factories and trading, urban people are easier to get a high payment and stable job in the city and enjoy the subsidies from the government every month. Depending on the data in the China Statistical Yearbook, the ratio of per capital income between rural areas to urban areas in 1978 was 1:3. From 1988 to 1995, the percent of real income increased in big cities like Beijng was 81.9% and in rural areas like Gansu Province was only 0.6%. The lack of subsidies on the medical care in a rural area also enforces the poverty. In 1980, approximately 40% of patients who need hospital treatments had to remain at home due to the poor medical care in rural. Nearly 70% of families under the poverty line were because of the illness and sick. All these differences push people to move to cities for higher payment job and more opportunities. Although people want to migrate to the more developed cities, the Hukou system limits the opportunities for them to develop in cities. However, there are still millions of rural people moving to the big cities to seek for opportunities each