In December 219, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the Opinions on Promoting the Reform of the System and Mechanism of Social Mobility of Labor and Talents (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions) to promote the reform of the system and mechanism of social mobility of labor and talents. The opinion calls for the complete abolition of the restrictions on the settlement of cities with a permanent population of less than 3 million in urban areas and the comprehensive relaxation of the conditions for the settlement of big cities with a permanent population of 3 million to 5 million in urban areas. The points settlement policy implemented in megacities with a permanent population of more than 5 million in urban areas should streamline the points items and ensure that the social insurance payment years and residence years account for the main proportion. As soon as this Opinion was published, it was widely spread on social media, which shows that public attention is extremely high. This also reflects the spirit of the central document to respond to the strongest needs of society in a timely manner.

China's urban scale is a top-down hierarchical management system, and the restrictions on labor mobility are naturally hierarchical management. The settlement policy in "Opinions" is precisely the difference in the scale of cities and the standards are also different.

Since p>1996, the population movement in China has accelerated, and cities are also adapting to the reality that the proportion of floating population has increased. Around 28, big cities represented by Shanghai took the lead in improving the public service access policy for migrants, and launched the "Three-year Compulsory Education Plan for Children of Migrant Workers (28-21)" to solve the difficulties of compulsory education for children of non-Shanghai registered population, such as Beijing. At that time, the overall trend was that the household registration policy was weakening, and policies such as the college entrance examination in different places were constantly being discussed and brewed.

In June, 213, the State Council reported to the National People's Congress on the progress of urbanization, and the caliber of city scale classification management was: "fully liberalize the restrictions on the settlement of small towns and small cities, orderly liberalize the restrictions on the settlement of medium cities, gradually relax the conditions for the settlement of large cities, and reasonably set the conditions for the settlement of megacities." In December, the national urbanization work conference was held, which reversed the formulation in June. The latter two items became "reasonably determine the conditions for settlement in big cities and strictly control the population size of megacities", and the requirements for settlement conditions in big cities were significantly improved.

subsequently, the spirit of the urbanization work conference was implemented as the national new urbanization plan in 214. On the basis of this plan, the central government also issued a document on the reform of the household registration system in the same year, and also updated the classification standard of city size in the same period, dividing cities into five categories and seven files. Due to the lack of accurate and recognized urban population data in China, we take the population ceiling of central cities in the overall urban planning approved by the State Council as the officially recognized urban scale level positioning. See the following table (Table 1) for details.

table 1: classification of city size (big cities and above)

source: master plans of cities approved by the general offices of the State Council and the State Council, sorted by the upper limit of the resident population in the central city, the planning time of most cities is 22.

from the original intention of the new urbanization plan, the policy encourages urbanization, and the plan puts forward "three 1 million people": promoting 1 million agricultural transfer population to settle in cities and towns, transforming urban shanty towns and villages where about 1 million people live, and guiding about 1 million people to urbanization nearby in the central and western regions. The policy wants everyone to go to small and medium-sized towns instead of big cities, which naturally encourages big cities to raise the threshold for migrants to settle down in disguise.

for a long time, the whole country and various places have been in the process of rapid rural-urban mobility, and they have not realized the plight of insufficient labor force. But at this time, the trend of urbanization has slowed down, and the growth rate of migrant workers has slowed down significantly (Figure 1). Before 212, the annual increase of migrant workers was as high as 5 million; Affected by the policy of strictly controlling megacities, it fell to less than 1 million after 215. In addition, the number of migrant workers in cities began to turn negative, that is, migrant workers returned home.

figure 1: structure and data changes of migrant workers (28-218)

data source: monitoring survey report of migrant workers over the years, National Bureau of Statistics. Unit: ten thousand people.

why is this happening? This is determined by the characteristics of population mobility. For more than 2 years since 199s, China's population migration has shown three characteristics: from the central and western regions to the southeast, from rural areas to cities, and from small towns to big cities.

In space, Professor Wang Guixin concluded that the emigration was "multipolar", while the emigration was more concentrated. The areas where the original population moved into concentrated areas showed the characteristics of the strong being stronger and stronger from the change of their immigration intensity. The focus of population migration has moved northward, and the Yangtze River Delta metropolitan area has replaced the Pearl River Delta metropolitan area as the main area for inter-provincial population migration since the 21st century (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Temporary migration of inter-provincial population: 1985-199 (left) and 2-25 (right)

Source: Liu et. al, 217

The urban scale of labor flow is also concentrated in big cities, because the "rural-urban mobility" model dominated from 2 to 21. In other words, long-distance migrant workers are more inclined to big cities.

Table 2: Migration Destination Distribution of Migrant Workers (215)

Source: 215 Migrant Workers Monitoring Survey Report, National Bureau of Statistics.

under the background of this mobility feature, if the settlement of big cities is restricted, the real urbanization speed will naturally be inhibited, which will further affect economic growth. At this rate, the plan of "three 1 million people" cannot be completed.

At the beginning of p>216, the State Council issued a document to encourage all regions to fully liberalize and relax the settlement conditions. In the second half of the year, the State Council issued a document to promote 1 million non-registered people to settle in cities (the first of the three 1 million people). During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the urbanization rate of registered population increased by more than 1 percentage point annually, with an average annual transfer of more than 13 million people. By 22, the urbanization rate of registered population in China will increase to 45%. The central government has also introduced new transfer payments, infrastructure funding support, and construction land indicators to encourage local governments to lower their thresholds.

At this time, the caliber of settlement is obviously relaxed compared with the caliber of new urbanization and household registration reform in 214:

1. Put forward the concept of key groups, including college students and people who have joined the army and entered the city, who have lived in employment for more than five years, who have moved to the city with their families, returned to China after studying abroad, and skilled workers, and give priority to solving these people's settlement.

2. The settlement of megacities and megacities is loose, and the suburbs, new districts and areas with low proportion of registered population should be further liberalized, and the index control should be liberalized.

3. cities with a permanent population of less than 3 million in urban areas are not allowed to settle down by points.

However, the implementation of this document is not ideal. Except for some second-tier cities, which started a war of grabbing people and implemented low or zero thresholds for people with bachelor's degrees, there are not many measures for other types of people. At the end of 218, the National Development and Reform Commission had to issue a document to inspect the implementation of the settlement of 1 million non-registered people in cities.

by 218, the actual urbanization has slowed down, which in turn affects all aspects of the economic development process. In the focus of work at the beginning of the year, the National Development and Reform Commission further relaxed the requirements for urban settlement:

1. The requirements for medium-sized cities and below were fully liberalized (previously, social security payment years could be required);

2. In type I big cities, the weight of social security and years of residence should be greatly increased, and the annual limit on the number of settlements should be encouraged to be cancelled;

3. encourage college students, returned overseas students and skilled workers to settle down at zero threshold.

in March p>219, the national development and reform commission further reduced its settlement caliber. On the basis that small and medium-sized cities and small towns with a permanent population of less than 1 million in urban areas have successively lifted their settlement restrictions, type II big cities with a permanent population of 1 million to 3 million in urban areas should completely lift their settlement restrictions; I-type big cities with a permanent population of 3 million to 5 million in urban areas should fully liberalize and relax the conditions for settlement, and completely cancel the restrictions on the settlement of key groups. Mega-cities should adjust and improve the settlement policy of points, greatly increase the scale of settlement, streamline points projects, and ensure that social security payment years and residence years account for the main proportion.

The settlement framework of the Opinions issued at the end of p>219 is basically consistent with the documents issued by the National Development and Reform Commission at the end of March. In other words, the focus of the annual urbanization work of the National Development and Reform Commission in early 219 was raised to the requirements of the Central Office and the State Office. Let's take a look at the following table (Table 3) to compare the differences between it and the documents on household registration reform in 214:

Table 3: Comparison of settlement standards of various types of cities (214vs219)

Sources: Opinions of the State Council on Further Promoting the Reform of Household Registration System (Guo Fa [214] No.25) and General Office of the State Council, Central Office of CPC * * *.

according to the requirements of the opinions and the city classification standard in table 2, all cities except 32 should be fully liberalized and settled, and 18 I-type big cities should also significantly lower the threshold for settlement.

So, what kind of influence will the Opinions have? My personal opinion is that this policy is a good one, but it is cautiously optimistic. Top-down policy, because of the lack of micro-incentive mechanism, is easily distorted in practice, and then there is a situation of doing bad things with good intentions, so such a policy needs a basket of policy support to play its role. Take the previous strategy of encouraging people to settle in small and medium-sized towns as an example. The family of laborers settled in small and medium-sized cities, but there were no employment opportunities there, so they still had to work in big cities, which increased the urbanization rate of urban registered population, and the problems of left-behind children and children who moved with them remained unsolved. In 215, among the left-behind children, children with urban household registration accounted for 41% (Figure 3), and among the floating population, the floating population with urban household registration was only 32%. That is to say, although the children have entered the city, they are still left behind and separated from their parents. Left-behind children are no longer a rural problem, but also an urban problem.

Figure 3: Number and composition of floating and left-behind children, 2-215

Source: National Bureau of Statistics, UNICEF, UNFPA, population situation of children in China in 215: facts and data, and the same is true of the settlement policy in 217

. Top-down promotion may certainly promote some migrant workers to settle in employment places, but it will fall behind. Will the resources of compulsory education and the qualification of college entrance examination be adjusted accordingly? Because the basic education in China is provided by the local government, the planning is slower than the population change, which fails to adapt to the trend of floating population, the ratio of students to teachers and the large class size (more than 55 students in a class) in urban areas and population inflow areas continue to be high. This will cause great public opinion and conflict between different groups of people. In some cities, even citizens with household registration, the procedures for their children to attend compulsory education are still complicated and the threshold is not low. When household registration does not become an obstacle, housing and social security payment become new obstacles. This means that before promoting the settlement of foreign population, local governments need to make preparations, especially the ability to provide public services to keep up with the growth of the number of people who have settled, so that new citizens can enjoy public services without causing inconvenience to old citizens.

of course, the most crucial question is, what motivation does the local government have to greatly increase the number of ordinary laborers to settle in the local area? Especially when they want to match enough public service resources. Since 216, there has been a certain degree of "bottom-by-bottom competition" in the process of grabbing people in second-tier cities, and the standard of zero-threshold settlement has been decreasing, such as education background and age, but the "bottom" of bottom-by-bottom competition is limited. Taking the city as a rational person, he will calculate the net income brought by the population who has settled in the city, and will accept it only if the income is positive.

The contribution of the working-age population (excluding those approaching retirement) is naturally positive, and children and the elderly need to be considered. When children and the elderly settle in cities, they often move with the young and strong labor force. In big cities, the young and strong labor force, their children and parents are considered as a whole. The strictest thing is to allow them to settle down (and their spouses move with them), the loosest thing is to allow their children to move with them, and the loosest thing is to allow their parents to move with them. The city is worried about the children and parents who move with it. Children need public investment in health and education, which can be regarded as an investment in the future. Accepting children will help them integrate into the city earlier, and they will be employed locally in the future, which will also help improve the quality of human capital; Old people have the burden of providing for the aged and medical care, which will not only have financial pressure, but also cause the tension of existing medical resources. This requires local governments to effectively improve and increase public resources such as medical care, old-age care, education, etc., and it is even more necessary to improve the payment method and industrial development strategy, especially the payment mechanism of financial subsidies, from the supply side to the demand side, so that the elderly will change from liabilities to assets, and then promote the development of the old-age care and medical industry.

At present, only Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province and some cities in Henan Province have settled down with zero threshold. On the one hand, these places have obtained a large scale of transfer payment, which can actively implement the central policy, on the other hand, it is also related to the constraints and incentives they face. The financial pressure brought by the basic public service standards in these places is relatively small, and giving foreign population household registration will not cause excessive burden on local finance, so the resistance is relatively small. This also gives us an inspiration. The resistance comes from the gap between regional public services (including hidden benefits), which not only causes the flow of population, but also is an obstacle to the free flow of population under the existing system. Before the payment mechanism of public service is solved, I'm afraid it will be difficult to have a good mechanism to solve it for a while.

Therefore, we should see that the megacities in the eastern developed areas such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta are the most attractive cities in China, with the highest threshold for settlement, and many of their settlement and public service provision mechanisms are imitated by other cities. In order to fully implement the settlement of non-registered permanent residents in China, it is necessary to give impetus to the settlement policies in these areas. For example, under the background of strict control of land use indicators in megacities, the existing policies such as "land follows people" (urban construction land indicators are transferred with population flow) should be implemented. Only by doing the right incentives and allowing cities to take the initiative to accept migrants can the central government's requirements for full liberalization and settlement be better implemented.