Resident Registration System in China

The resident registration is one of the points China receives the critics most frequently.

When China established the planned economy in 1950s, each resident had to be registered in one place, usually his birth place. If you wanted to move to another city, you had to be registered in the new place. But it is very difficult to change. First you had to find one company in the new city to receive you, second you had to get the old company’s permission, which was usually the most difficult point.

There were a lot of people, especially poor people moved from the original place to a new place without registration. If they were caught by the police, they would be treated like a criminal. Fine, beaten, jailed, everything was possible.

In 2003 a college student was caught in Shenzhen without registration, he argued and fought, and at last he was beaten to death. This was a big news in the year. And after that incident, the policy began to change. Now the police have no rights to jail anyone for without registration.

But the resident registration system still works, especially in the big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. If you move from someplace to Beijing without the registration, you have difficulty to find the highly paid job. Your kids will be charged extra more than other residents’ children. Even you are registered in Beijing, but you are married to a girl from another place, your wife could not be registered in Beijing, either. It is not before her 45 age until she could not be registered in Beijing. Sometimes I joked that to be registered in Beijing is more difficult to get the United Stated visa.

Of course, such system is not good for the economy and equality. But it is said that if the registration system is cancelled, everybody will rush to the big cities for the higher living standard, and it will be a disaster for the big cities. I don’t know so much about the nation level things, but I believe there is more ways to correct it and make it more human.