Hukou and non-hukou migrations in China: comparisons and contrasts.

Abstract

The household registration (hukou) system in China was studied using China's 1990 census 1% microdata and interprovincial migration studies. In doing this, the socioeconomic characteristics and geographical patterns of long-distance hukou and non-hukou migratory flows were compared before developing a framework of dual migration circuits. The framework uses a statistical model to evaluate migration rates in relation to both origin and destination variables. It was found that these two types of migrants shared some general demographic characteristics, but displayed substantial socioeconomic differences. The hukou migrants that tended to originate in urban areas had an extremely high share of college-educated people and were employed in higher skilled jobs, while non-hukou migrants were mostly from rural areas with much lower educational attainment. Hukou labor migrants tended to move through government and formal channels, while non-hukou migrants relied on their own, often informal, source of jobs. Furthermore, a difference as to the migration mechanisms between hukou and non-hukou migrants was noted. Non-hukou migration rate were tied positively to the migration stock, a process consistent with a networked migration hypothesis, while hukou migration rates were not. The rural labor migrants moved away from provinces of high population pressure to those with more favorable land/labor ratios, in line with neoclassical predictions. Hukou migration moved in the opposite direction, reflecting a different set of factors at work. The analysis indicates that the hukou system remained a relatively powerful institution in structuring migration in the 1980s.