Q: China has the largest population in the world. With such a large population, how does China manage household registration? As the reform and opening-up policy is deeply implemented, what reform of household registration is being carried out?

A: Household registration (also called civil registration in foreign countries) is one of the basic social management mechanisms in all countries. China makes no exception. It manages its population of about 1.3 billion mainly through the household registration mechanism.

The present household registration system was established in 1958. Although somewhat similar to mechanisms in foreign countries, it follows a quite different method of management. In China, people are divided into two categories: non-agricultural households, which mainly refer to people in cities and counties and account for about 30 percent of the country's total population, and agricultural households, which refer to people in places other than urban areas and account for 70 percent of the total population. Different management of the two categories of households divides the urban population and rural population, leading to artificial disparity and unfairness between urban and rural areas and between different regions. Under such a household registration management system, quotas strictly restrain the moving of household registration and it is very difficult for rural households to be transferred to urban ones. This can be realized only by studying in universities, joining the army, or being recruited by factories in urban areas. All of this influences the normal migration of citizens to a certain extent.

In more than 20 years of development of the market economy, more and more rural residents have moved to cities. Estimates are that the floating population in China has reached 140 million, only 50 million of whom are registered as temporary residents in urban areas. Hence, the intrinsic household registration system did not conform to the requirements of reform and opening up, with a rapidly increasing floating population.

Therefore, China launched household registration reform in small towns beginning in 2001, gradually relaxing restrictions on farmers' migration to cities. After that, most provinces and cities, except Beijing, Shanghai and other large cities, joined the comprehensive reform of the household registration system with the aim of replacing the quota system with an access system in order to gradually relax restrictions and establish a unitary household registration system with the basic registration condition of having legal and fixed domiciles, stable professions or sources of livelihood.

Of course, because of the country's large population, China's reform of the household registration system has taken place in progression. If all restrictions on migration were lifted at the same time, cities, especially large and medium-sized cities, would face severe pressure in terms of public facilities, health care, employment and education. However, China is still actively advancing reform of its household registration system and speeding up the drafting of the Law of Household Registration in order to make the new system more suitable to the management of population movement and to secure the rights of equality and freedom for all Chinese citizens.