ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses Chinas social policy reforms from the 1990s and assesses the consequences of the reforms on rural migrants and hence the rural urban divide. By social policy reforms refer to the institutional and policy changes which abolish privileged entitlements associated with urban hukou and other forms of status and redefine individual's rights to welfare interests and public services on the basis of citizenship. The chapter first discusses that there are no longer legal and policy discriminations specifically against rural hukou in terms of employment-related social rights; secondly, there are some local policies in favor of local hukou holders in the fields of residence-based welfare and public services. Thirdly, as the institutional framework of the rural urban divide is dismantled, the non-institutional residuals of the rural urban divide and newly emerged local citizenship issues are unable to maintain the rural hukou underclass.
