Nowadays, a smaller number of people are looking to give up their rural hukou ( household registration) than even before, as the disadvantages of rural citizenship become fewer and fewer.
Experts said that people with a rural hukou can not only enjoy welfare similar to what urbanites receive, but are also guaranteed the use of land.
According to experts, "counter urbanization" is just another step in China's industrialization.
Staying put
In China, the current dual-household registration system has divided people into urban or rural households since the 1950s.
"When I was young, I often heard people in my village talking about trying to get an urban hukou," Bi Yanxue, a 25-year-old teacher from the village of Biji in East China's Shandong Province, told the Global Times.
"In the past decades, since there were many limitations in society, an urban hukou could mean better opportunities in education, employment and joining the army. Therefore, an urban hukou was more valuable than a rural one," Zheng Fengtian, a vice dean of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times.
"However, since hukou was strictly controlled back then, it was very difficult to switch between urban and rural hukou, so some people from the countryside even sought to buy an urban one," Zheng said.
According to a survey of rural people in central and western China conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in April more than half of those interviewees said they either "don't really want" or "totally don't want" to move to a city or town.
According to China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), in the next five years the proportion of the population with urban hukou should increase by about 5 percent. To this end, 135 cities and towns in East China's Anhui and Jiangsu provinces have made it easier to acquire urban hukou and are offering housing and employment benefits, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
However, the policy has not been popular. In some areas, only some 200 people have switched to an urban hukou, Xinhua reported.
"Nowadays nobody talks about changing their rural hukou anymore. You can hardly feel any difference with either hukou when you try to live or try to find a job," Bi said.
Rural riches
"The situation has changed since China abolished the agricultural tax completely in 2006 thanks to the development of industry since 1949," Yu Shaoxiang, an expert on social security and poverty relief legislation at the CASS, told the Global Times.
Previously, all companies and individuals involved in farming had to pay a tax on their income from agriculture.
"Industry began to support agriculture, and people in rural areas can enjoy agricultural subsidies and other social welfare, which means rural people can enjoy similar social benefits as urbanites," Yu noted.
"Many rural people find it very difficult to join city life due to their lack of education and confidence," Yu said.
Another significant cause is the economic benefits people receive from being a villager, because their land is a source of income, Yu noted.
According to Chinese law, urban land is owned by the State and rural land under collective ownership. Farmers use the land but have no right to sell or develop it, Xinhua reported.
Farmers have land on which to build their houses and land to farm, both of which they can also rent out. Besides, they receive dividends from collectively-owned enterprises run by their villages, Zheng said.
"Moreover, rural hukou in top cities such as Shanghai and Beijing are highly valuable, because the increasing demand for land means that farmer's land is more valuable than ever," Zheng said.
"Currently China is experiencing a process of counter urbanization, in which rural residents do not want to move to the cities, while urban people are moving out of the cities," Zheng said.
However, in the long term, modernization and industrialization will continue and eventually fewer people will work in agriculture, Yu said.
