ABSTRACT
The household registration system (hukou system), as one of the most important institutional arrangements in China, has restricted and regulated Chinese population migration. This system has recently experienced severe stresses due to the huge wave of urban–rural migration that has taken place since the beginning of economic reform. So far, it has not been able to serve as an effective block on geographic population migration. Its impact on labor migration also seems to have decreased. However, it continues to have significant and persistent effects on social mobility, which have brought about different processes of socioeconomic status attainment for migrants and non-migrants. This chapter seeks to examine the effect of this institutional segmentation (the hukou system) on social mobility by comparing the different paths of occupational and economic status attainments of migrants and non-migrants.
