Hukou & Caste Reservation: The Future Of Socioeconomic Policy Reform

The Chinese Hukou System has evolved into one of the nation’s largest, yet silent controversies. Less well-known in the west, the system affects a majority of Chinese citizens, specifically migrants to urban areas. The debate about this system mainly centers around the exclusion of rural-origin individuals from public services in urban areas due to said origins. With the acceleration of this issue and widespread criticism of the existing system, China is poised to reform how Hukou is assigned and ease restrictions to promote urbanization.

In "Internal Migration in China: Integrating Migration with Urbanization Policies and Hukou Reform (Policy Note 16)," Kam Wing Chan addresses the background, intentions, effects, and future of the Hukou System. Chan summarizes the Hukou System as linked to an individual’s original locality, and non-local rural migrants to cities are unable to access basic services in their new places of residence and/or work. With Hukou status for a given type and area, citizens may access public benefits such as education and transportation with greater ease than those without such status. In my view, the Hukou System is odd as, although it incentivizes urban living, the system does not promote relocation well due to barriers to obtaining urban benefits. Therefore, Hukou seems to work against urbanization and equality measures. Thus, the Chinese government aims to reform Hukou to allow for rural-to-urban Hukou conversions that do not disadvantage rural-origin migrants and instead spur more urban prosperity; such is a much-needed and well-formulated reform with caveats only regarding draining rural/agricultural regions, in addition to adapting to migrants with sufficient multi-sector infrastructure.

The China Daily article, “Reform Makes it Easier for Migrants to Gain City Hukou” by Li Lei primarily focuses on future-oriented reforms—also covered in Chan's policy note—that are designed to make the Hukou System more equal and just for migrants. The proposed reforms ease requirements for newer migrants to be granted urban Hukou and access benefits. Interestingly, Li notes that small and medium-sized cities have essentially removed restrictions, as opposed to larger urban areas which have relaxed restrictions, stopping short of full elimination. This difference in policy encourages growth in the former and serves to not overcrowd the latter. Li also observes that the portion of the Chinese population consisting of migrants without urban Hukou privileges is over 60%. Thus, the Hukou reforms have great potential to uplift hundreds of millions of Chinese and trigger a new wave of rapid industrialization.

To respond to these anticipated impacts, the Chinese government plans to implement "people-centered" urbanization, which includes infrastructure and housing designed to accommodate increasingly massive urban populations. While this potential trend has great economic prospects, the Chinese government does not seem to focus on rural decay and its consequences—which are not limited to the socioeconomic realm. In fact, rural decay will weaken China politically if not reversed. The PRC's major advantage of relative self-sufficiency (of course in comparison with America) would then be eliminated, and a future hyper-urbanized China would rely on imports for food. Moreover, I have not even mentioned environmental and health effects of a near-fully-urbanized country.

I find the Hukou System of note as it somewhat mirrors similar socioeconomic classification systems in other countries such as India. The Hukou System, by favoring longer-term urban residents instead of rural-origin migrants—often more in need than their comfortably-urban counterparts—impedes development based on individuals' pre-existing characteristics, not socioeconomic status or merit. In fact, the central concern of the Hukou System is its interwovenness with family unity. Hukou are assigned to families and thus affect Chinese citizens across generations, disadvantaging poorer, less-educated, rural families, the very "proletariat" population that Maoist Communism allegedly seeks to uplift.

The Indian Reservation System similarly discriminates against individuals based on their religion and "caste," a complex, non-religious (but rather secular) identity that is misrepresented in Western discourse. India's Reservation System does not uphold the traditional "caste system" per se. One would assume based on what is taught in the West that a discriminatory system in India would discriminate against non-Hindus and "lower" castes. Instead, Reservations in India is a categorized socioeconomic policy that seeks to support religious minorities and reverse the effects of the old "caste system" by flipping it upside down.

Indeed, the originally British-imposed Indian Reservation System explicitly ranks social groups—many of which are clans, tribes, and classes—into tiers based on their societal status, favoring the "lowest" groups. Large quotas are reserved in education and jobs for religious minorities and "backward" castes, allowing them to acquire seats and employment with lower marks. Religious minorities and caste groups have all accordingly reserved seats in addition to being able to take non-reserved seats via merit. Meanwhile, Hindus and "forward" castes must wrangle over any remaining, non-reserved opportunities, creating intense competition. The religious reservations/preference applies only within "backward" castes, so a Hindu in that category would not have the same number of available seats as a Muslim or Christian from his/her community. This additional provision creates further discrimination against Hindus, who form a majority in many of these “lower” caste communities as it provides their brethren of other faiths more opportunities simply for their religious affiliations.

As one can imagine, anger has risen regarding this inequitable system that prioritizes historical identities and treatment over present, real-life, socioeconomic realities. Instead of reserving based on socioeconomic conditions, such as needy vs wealthy, Reservations favor a wealthier "backward" caste and/or religious minority individual over others living in squalid conditions. Without economic considerations, the current system fails the very groups it aims to uplift by encouraging elitism within those groups, by solely focusing on undoing social inequalities instead of accommodating to add economic struggles plaguing a vast proportion of Indians.

Reading about Hukou in China poignantly and unpleasantly reminds of this antiquated system in India, raising the question as to why such a system would exist in China as well, which I viewed as much more progressive than India, especially in socioeconomic matters. It seems that China, just as India, still places emphasis on family origins that lack relevance to presently-existing socioeconomic need. A rural Chinese family seeking urban opportunities should not be discriminated against just as a poor Hindu or "forward" caste Indian should not be impeded from advancing out of his/her reality, both for family origins they have no control over and which certainly do not bring them societal favor. Now what still reinforces my previous perception of China as more progressive than India is that the autocratic CCP is reforming its policies whereas India fails to reform any of its policies, rather imposing even more reservations, due to its populist, identitarian democracy that lacks ideological development.

Additional reasons exist for why China is reforming but India will not. The CCP's reforms, as Li mentions, will improve life for a near-supermajority of Chinese migrants who are viewed as disadvantaged by society due to their rural background. Meanwhile, no past, present, or future ruling coalition could, cannot, and will not reform caste/religious reservations due to certain factors. Firstly, the British and formerly-governing Indian National Congress (INC) and its allies ingrained a view that certain groups require reservations to succeed and that without the policy progress is impossible. Secondly, the majority of Indians—who benefit from reservations—would perform an execution-by-ballot box of any national or local party that attempts to decrease their communities' reservations.

While China's future on this issue is heading in the right direction as the CCP surprisingly works to correct discrimination with sensible, unilateral reform, other developing nations bleakly struggle with similar issues of unequal, inequitable, and antiquated socioeconomic policies. The developed and developing world should watch, even if they are not currently, these impeding domestic reforms carefully and implement learned lessons to revise their own agendas. Governments must heed the concerns of all of their populations, striking a balance between clashing interests and keeping in mind both historical discrimination as well as present realities and rights.

Disclaimer: The above is a contributor post, the views expressed are those of the contributor and do not represent the stand and views of Outlook Editorial.