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China's Missing Children: Political Barriers to Citizenship through the Household Registration System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Samantha A. Vortherms
Samantha A. Vortherms*
Affiliation:
Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center, Stanford University; University of California, Irvine. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Approximately 13 million Chinese lack hukou, the formal household registration. This prevents them from claiming full citizenship rights, including social welfare, formal identity documents and employment in the state sector. The government blames birth planning policies for the unregistered population, but this explanation ignores the role of internal migration. Because citizenship rights are locally determined and the hukou system is locally managed, migrants face significant barriers to registering their children. This article systematically analyses the political determinants of the unregistered population nationwide. Based on a logit analysis of a sample of 2.5 million children from the 2000 census, I find that children born in violation of the one-child policy do have lower rates of registration and that children born to migrant mothers are four times more likely to be unregistered than registered. Continuing government focus on the effect of birth planning ignores the more fundamental institutional barriers inherent in the hukou system.

摘要

中国人口中大约有 1300 万人没有户口，属于户籍制度外人口。户口的缺失意味着权利的缺失。户籍制度外人口无法享受社会福利，无法申办身份证， 也不能在国有部门就业。政府官方对此的解释是违反计划生育政策是户口缺失的首要原因，但是这一解释忽略了流动人口因素的影响。由于公民权利以及户口制度是由当地政府管理， 外来流动人口往往不能给子女在当地上户口。本文对户口缺失的政治决定因素进行了系统的分析研究。根据对 2000 年人口普查中 250 万儿童的样本进行 logit 分析，本文作者发现违计划生育政策的超生儿童的户口登记率偏低。在流动人口儿童中，没有户口儿童是有户口儿童的四倍。在户口缺失这一问题上，政府仅仅对计划生育政策的影响加以关注，而忽略了户口制度本身所固有的制度性障碍。

Keywords

unregistered populationhousehold registration systemfloating populationbirth planning policyChina黑户户籍制度流动人口生育计划政策
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 238 , June 2019 , pp. 309 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London 2018 

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