ABSTRACT
The past quarter century has witnessed rapid economic growth and enormous social changes in the history of the People’s Republic of China. China’s total GDP has increased by 37 times, from 362.4 billion RMB yuan in 1978 to 13.7 trillion RMB yuan in 2004, and the GDP per capita has increased by 27 times, from 379 RMB yuan in 1978 to 10,561 RMB yuan in 2004 (NBS 2005). The economic reform has not only brought phenomenal growth in prosperity but also has unleashed dynamic forces that in many respects had been suppressed during the first three decades of communist rule. Government control on population migration has weakened and geographic mobility, particularly from rural to urban areas, has become much easier than before. The growing number of migrants without local household registration status (hukou) since the early 1980s reflects fundamental social and demographic changes in Chinese society. The 2000 population census data show that the number of inter-county migrants, predominantly rural farmers, has reached 79 million, a total greater than the population of either France or Britain (Liang and Ma 2004).1
