Chinanews, Beijing, Feb.27 – A recent survey shows that 91.7% of respondents believe the Hukou (household registration) system should be further reformed in China.

The survey was conducted by the China Youth Daily Social Investigation¹ Center and the sina website on 11,168 individuals.

About 57.5% of the respondents admit that to the common people Hukou plays the biggest role in "providing convenience for kids to enter schools", followed by "providing practical social and medical security" (35.9%).

Due to such consideration, says the survey, 40.7% of the respondents believe undoubtedly² Hukou still remains³ important nowadays. Moreover, 23% of them even prefer an urban Hukou to a good job when asked to choose one answer at one time.

It is indicated that with the wide gap between town and country, many welfare benefits connected with Hukou are still a big temptation to people in many regions in China especially in big cities.

Dang Guoying, a professor from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, gave an example. Those Beijing citizens with no more than 2,500-yuan annual income are covered by the city's minimum living allowance scheme, and then they can get living and medical subsidies⁴, or retirement⁵ pensions from the government. In China's rural areas, however, about 200 million farmers earn less than 2,500 yuan annually⁶. If permitted, they do want an urban Hukou to get more basic life security.

Some people also point out that Hukou is not the point actually, while regional disparity is the basic issue instead.