context: Experts points out that the ‘2019 key tasks for "new urbanisation" initiative’ buys more grassroots supports than the real benefits it provides.
The plan provides nothing 'unprecedented' but simply legitimises the de facto relaxed hukou regime since the talent war broke out in 2017, argues Zhang Yi 张翼 CASS Institute of Social Development and Strategy.
Moreover, the smaller the city is and the less welfare its hukou is tied to, the easier to proceed with hukou reform. At the moment, the hukou of small- and medium-sized cities is already quite accessible, and obstacles lie mostly in large cities, which can hardly be resolved overnight, says Lu Yilong 陆益龙 Renmin University Sociological Theories and Methods Research Centre professor.
Zhang's research also shows that more than 80 percent of migrant workers do not want to relocate their hukou to cities, worrying that they will lose their homestead land and contracted land. Rural migrants care more about access to jobs, schools and urban welfare, hence they prefer large cities over small ones, which are relatively hard to get into. Instead, university graduates' demand for hukou is rather inelastic.
Lu Ming 陆铭 Shanghai Jiaotong University Distinguished Professor agrees that the relaxed hukou regime will not drive migrant flows into cities with populations of five million and less; instead, it will accelerate population agglomeration into first- and second-tier cities.
The policy may also not give a strong boost to the real estate market, as it extends the three-year-long property market stimulus, says Yang Hongxu 杨红旭 Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute vice director. Demand seems weak because
- cities with populations of one to three million are usually not imposed with property purchase restrictions; migrants can buy houses regardless of their hukou status
- cities with populations of three to five million and other second-tier cities already lowered (or partially removed) hukou threshold in the past three years
Lu argues that the point-based hukou system is more equitable than a property- or education qualification-based regime, because it is less discriminatory against low-income and unskilled workers, and a city needs people from different background. Also, the point-based hukou system is tied with years of residency and social security payment, which is more favourable to 'old' migrants who spent a long time in a given city and integrated themselves better with local residents.