Hukou

Hukou is a system of household registration used in mainland China. It officially identifies a person as a permanent resident of a place.  It has information about name, parents, spouse and date of birth. A hukou can also refer to a family register. The household register is for a family, and usually includes the births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and moves, of all the people in the family. A person's residence is tied to their place of birth or their parent's place of birth. Hukou registration limits the types of jobs a person can do in a city and the types of housing they are able to stay in.

The government gives people benefits based on agricultural and non-agricultural residency status (often called rural and urban).  Urban residents got retirement pensions, education  and  health care, while rural people got none of those things. They had to build their own homes and grow their own food.  Migration inside China was  controlled by the government.  It was difficult to move from the country into a city.  People who moved without permission had to work in very bad conditions as they had no rights.

After 1978 controls were not so strict.  Migrant workers could  get temporary residency permits, but they generally got worse jobs and get less money. They often had to leave their children behind in the rural area. If the children came to the city they may not be able to go to public schools or colleges. By 2016, the government  had given urban hukou to about 28.9 million rural migrants.   People were more likely to get an urban hukou if they owned their home or if they had qualifications.  In the special economic zones of China - Shenzhen, Shantou, and Zhuhai in Guangdong province and Xiamen located in Fujian province people were allowed to have both rural and urban houkou. 

Rural hukou holders have property rights over the land which urban people dont have. 

In Hong Kong and Macau there is no houkou system, but people do have to have identification cards.  

 References 

Category:History of the People's Republic of China
Category:Law of the People's Republic of China
Category:Politics of the People's Republic of China