The Household Registration Threshold and Peasant Worker Decision-Making over Acquiring Urban Hukou in China

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of the household registration threshold on peasant worker decision-making over acquiring urban hukou using 2258 peasant workers’ data in China. The results demonstrate that the household registration threshold will significantly increase the peasant workers’ willingness to obtain urban hukou, and increase the peasant workers’ probability of acquiring the urban hukou of home province cities. In addition, China’s household registration threshold plays a more significant role in metropolitan cities and eastern cities than in small and medium-sized cities and midwestern cities in terms of its impact on peasant workers’ willingness to acquire urban hukou, and their urban hukou location intention. The degree of social integration’s mediating effect is significant. Firstly, the degree of social integration reduces the positive effect of the household registration threshold for peasant workers acquiring urban hukou. Next, the degree of social integration influences peasant workers choosing urban hukou in the work city. To achieve improvement in the new urbanisation level of the household registration population, it is necessary to promote the integration of peasant workers and residents and decrease the household registration threshold for peasant workers’ work cities.