Rural reform, step by step (2)

RIGID HUKOU SYSTEM

Another key barrier holding back China's urbanization process is the rigid hukou system, or household registration system, which is tied to one's place of residence and is used to obtain access to basic welfare and public services.

The system has prevented migrants like Huang from gaining equal access to services in cities, disadvantaging them to a more vulnerable position.

Although China's urban population exceeded its rural population for the first time last year, with city-dwellers accounting for 51.27 percent of the population, a considerable portion of them have no official city hukou.

Friday's document promised to gradually allow eligible rural migrants become official city residents, accelerate reform in the hukou system to fully remove restrictions in towns and small cities, gradually ease restriction in mid-sized cities, setting reasonable conditions for settling in big cities while strictly controlling the population in megacities.

"The trend to gradually cut the tie between hukou and social benefits will remove the hukou system in the end," said Chi Fulin, head of the China Institute for Reform and Development, a think tank based in southern China's Hainan Province.