Reconstituting the Rural‐Urban Divide: Peasant migration and the rise of 'orderly migration' in contemporary China

Abstract

The dramatic rise in China's rural-to-urban migration in recent years represents a sharp contrast to earlier decades when population movement was limited due to strict government control. This paper first traces the historical institutional conditions that prevented large-scale rural-to-urban migration in the 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on three interlocking mechanisms of control: urban employment policy; food rationing; and household registration, and explains the rationale behind these policies and their evolution into a system inhibiting peasant migration. It then analyzes the decline of these old institutions during the reform. The breakdown of these institutions, however, does not warrant the conclusion that the Chinese state has been sidelined in the migration process. By way of examining the rise of 'orderly migration' in recent years, the author shows that the Chinese state is deeply involved in the migration process. The author argues that 'orderly migration' represents an attempt by the state to reconstitute the historic rural‐urban divide in a new setting.