ABSTRACT
The hukou system was formally implemented in the late 1950s. Over the past several decades, it has not only fortified institutional and social barriers between rural and urban China but also influenced all aspects of Chinese society and economy. In the Maoist, pre-reform period, these barriers enabled the state to pursue development plans by binding peasants to the countryside and fostering the transfer of value from agriculture to industry. Despite the economic reforms and many changes to hukou regulations that have facilitated rural-urban migration since the 1980s, formidable barriers between the rural and the urban segments of society persist. These barriers, as I have argued in Chapter 1, have enabled the state’s pursuit of developmentalist goals in a new milieu open to the market and the global economy. The hukou system, in both the pre-reform and reform periods, has been a crucial tool of the state and has had deep impacts on the lives of Chinese citizens. This chapter focuses on the hukou system, its origins, its role in migration control, criticisms of the system, and hukou reforms.
