How does Household Registration Reform make Urban and Rural areas more Equal

Recently, Beijing launched the "opinions on the implementation of further promoting the Reform of the Household Registration system", abolishing the distinction between the nature of agricultural and non-agricultural hukou, and establishing a unified hukou registration system in urban and rural areas, which has aroused widespread concern in the community.

What will be the impact of Beijing's cancellation of agricultural hukou on the dredging of non-capital functions? After the introduction of the policy, how to further improve the health care, education, employment, social security and other systems, fair distribution of resources, so that the broad masses of farmers have the courage and will to become "residents"?

Unified registration as a resident hukou

Beijing abolishes the distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou and uniformly registers it as a resident hukou, which is an innovation in population service management. It is undoubtedly of exemplary significance to establish education, health, family planning, employment, social security, housing, land and demographic systems in line with the unified urban and rural household registration system, implement a residence permit system, and improve the population information management system, to achieve the integration and sharing of cross-departmental information-- as the capital.

It is understood that Beijing has previously cancelled the restrictions on the conversion of registered permanent residence to non-registered farmers. In August this year, among the 18 convenient service measures introduced by the Beijing police, it was proposed that the nature of the household registration of agricultural residents in Beijing should be changed from agricultural to non-agricultural conditions, which can be handled on their own initiative.

The main welfare differences between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou are land and public services. The rights and interests of agricultural hukou are mainly responsible land and homestead, while those of non-agricultural hukou are mainly some social welfare attached to household registration, including education, health care, employment, insurance, housing and so on.

Some people worry that the cancellation of agricultural hukou will affect the existing rights and interests of farmers. In response, experts said that the reform of the household registration system in Beijing has uniformly renamed farmers and urban residents as residents, eliminated identity differences, and gradually realized the integration of residents' social management between urban and rural areas, public services, and equalization of welfare treatments. it is conducive to promoting social fairness and justice.

"households follow others" to relieve the population of the central urban area

If Beijing cancels its agricultural hukou, can it dredge the non-capital functions and reduce the population density in the central urban area? the "implementation opinions" clearly point out that by 2020, the resident population of Beijing will be limited to 23 million, and the resident population of the six urban districts will drop by about 15 percent on the basis of 2014.

In accordance with the requirements of relieving non-capital functions in an orderly manner and optimizing and upgrading the core functions of the capital, Beijing strictly abides by the red line of total population, strives to optimize and adjust its economic and spatial structure, and actively promotes "people follow function and people follow industry". Continuously reduce the population density of the central urban area, and study the hukou relocation policy of "households follow people".

Data show that in the first half of this year, the population of the six urban districts of Beijing decreased by 110000 compared with the same period last year, while the increase and growth rate of the city's resident population was lower than that of the same period last year. However, the phenomenon of "separation of people and households" is obvious.

According to expert analysis, many of the people separated from households in Beijing are high-end people, including foreign settlement, transfer from Beijing, exchange of posts in different places, business people, and so on. The key to "every household goes with others" is the quality public services behind household registration, such as health care, education, security, and so on. Only when these aspects are balanced can we be willing to integrate people and households into one.

At the same time, the relevant responsible person of the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission said that there is no contradiction between the evacuation of the population and the introduction of talents. Beijing will actively implement the points settlement system, improve the talent settlement policy, and build a "sophisticated" economic structure. We will implement a more open policy on the introduction of talents, improve the settlement system of high-level talents and the shortage of urgently needed talents, and attract high-level talents to innovate in Beijing.

How to guarantee the interests of Farmers going to cities

By the end of 2015, 1.74 million farmers in Beijing had participated in old-age insurance for urban and rural residents, with a basic pension of 470 yuan, less than urban residents, according to data released on the website of the Beijing Municipal people's and Social Affairs Bureau. Experts pointed out that after the cancellation of agricultural hukou, unified registration as residents is to give farmers equal status and equal treatment. Their welfare in pension, health care, education and other areas will be further improved.

Sun Wencheng, secretary of the Agricultural and work Committee of the Beijing Municipal CPC Committee, said that in the next five years, Beijing will vigorously promote the equalization of public services and realize the integration of urban and rural areas from seven aspects, such as "employment, education, medical and health care, culture and sports, old-age care, social security and assistance". In education, we should achieve a balanced allocation of high-quality educational resources between urban and rural areas, and medical and health care should focus on solving the problem of shortage of rural clinics and health care personnel. In terms of social security, we should achieve the overall planning of the old-age insurance fund for urban and rural residents at the municipal level, achieve the overall planning and real-time settlement of the NCMS as soon as possible, and establish a unified medical insurance system for urban and rural residents by the end of 2018. At the same time, we should comprehensively deepen rural reform, promote the circulation of land, the management of assets, and the organization of farmers, further enhance the vitality of rural development, and protect and realize farmers' property rights and development rights.

However, some experts said that the goal of the reform of the household registration system is to achieve the equalization of resource allocation and public services, and the abolition of agricultural hukou is only the first step. Only when the equality of the supply of public resources is truly realized and the reform of the household registration system with the goal of eliminating the dual division between urban and rural areas can be regarded as a real success.