A worker can spend years building a city while remaining administratively tied to another place. Their children attend local schools, their rent is paid locally and their health needs arise locally, yet access to public services may still be shaped by household registration.
China’s State Council has called for basic public services to be provided according to where people actually live, rather than only where their hukou is registered. The direction is significant because it treats mobility as a normal condition of urban life, not a temporary exception.
Residence must be easy to establish
A residence-based system still needs rules about evidence. Rental contracts, employment records and digital registration can become new barriers if informal tenants and flexible workers cannot produce them.
Verification should be proportionate, appealable and designed around real housing arrangements.
Schools are the first capacity test
Equal eligibility means little if classrooms, teachers and places do not expand with population. Migrant children need continuity, not repeated uncertainty at enrolment and examination stages.
Funding formulas should follow actual enrolment and recognise neighbourhoods with rapid population change.
Social insurance must travel
Removing restrictions on participation is only one step. Contributions, medical coverage and entitlements need to transfer cleanly between cities and provinces.
Workers should be able to see records, correct gaps and understand what a move changes before they need care.
Housing access affects every other service
Public rental housing can stabilise families, but requirements for stable employment may exclude people with the least stable work. Supply constraints can also turn a formal entitlement into a long queue.
Cities need transparent priorities and enough affordable options near jobs and schools.
Municipal finance must match responsibility
Destination cities bear service costs while migrants may retain administrative ties elsewhere. If funding does not follow residents, local governments have an incentive to narrow practical access.
Central transfers and comparable service standards are essential to prevent a postcode lottery.
Belonging is built through ordinary systems
The reform should be judged through waiting times, enrolment, insurance portability, housing access and outcomes for children, older people and disabled residents.
Urbanisation becomes people-centred when moving for work no longer means living provisionally for years. The registration book should record a life, not limit where that life can receive basic support.
