ABSTRACT
Since the early 1980s, there has been a partial freeing up of this system, and Chinese people, including rural residents, have been permitted to move to other places temporarily without having to change their place of hukou registration (Chang 1996, Yang 1993, Mallee 1995, Roberts 2001, 2002, Goodkind and West 2002, Shen and Huang 2003, Zhu 2003, Wang 1997, 2004, Liang and Ma 2004). Mobility has, in effect, been countenanced because of the demands for labour exerted by China’s burgeoning urban economies. However, ‘human mobility’ (movement between places) has not been matched by ‘hukou mobility’ (movement between categories), with the result that place of hukou registration is separated from place of living for increasing numbers of people. Thus, in addition to the concept of hukou identity defined above, this chapter also explores the effects of hukou ‘status’ – those with local hukou and those without local hukou.
