Hukou as benefits: Demand for hukou and wages in China

Samantha A Vortherms and Gordon G Liu
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Samantha A Vortherms: University of California Irvine, USA
Gordon G Liu: Peking University, China

Urban Studies, 2022, vol. 59, issue 15, 3167-3183

Abstract: As China encourages urbanisation, a necessary process is the urbanisation of its people, granting local-urban hukou , or local citizenship, to migrant populations. But reforms encouraging urbanisation are dependent on migrant populations wanting to become formal, registered urban residents. What is the demand for hukou ? Based on a unique probabilistically-sampled contingent valuation survey of over 900 migrants in Beijing and Changsha, we use migrants’ willingness-to-pay for hukou as a measure of demand for urbanisation. We find that migrants in Beijing are willing to give up between 9% and 14% of their income over five years to gain local-urban hukou . Migrants in Changsha are much less willing to pay for hukou with a willingness-to-pay indistinguishable from zero, and rural migrants have a negative willingness-to-pay. This study contributes to the broader literature on the impact of China’s hukou system by providing a unique test of migrant workers’ willingness-to-pay for local citizenship.

Keywords: China; contingent valuation; household registration; hukuo; migration; urbanisation; 中国; æ ¡ä»¶è¯„ä¼°; æˆ·ç± ç™»è®°; è¿ ç§»; 城市化 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:59:y:2022:i:15:p:3167-3183

DOI: 10.1177/00420980221074911

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