社论 | 加快外来人口市民化 Editorial: For China’s Biggest Cities, Migrants Are a Wealth Generator, Not a Burden (Bilingual)

即将于10月举行的中共十九届五中全会将研究关于制定第十四个五年规划的建议。几天前，习近平总书记主持召开经济社会领域专家座谈会，就此听取意见。有专家提出，加快实施中心城市带动的都市圈和城市群发展战略，重点推进城区人口500万以上大城市的户籍制度改革。这一建言值得重视。

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which is due to take place in October, will discuss recommendations for the country’s 14th five-year plan.

A few days ago, President Xi Jinping convened an expert forum on the subjects of society and economics, where he listened to suggestions. Some experts proposed speeding up the implementation of the development strategy for metropolitan areas and city clusters led by so-called national central cities, with a focus on boosting reform of the household registration systems in large urban areas with populations exceeding 5 million. This recommendation is worth heeding.

在当今中国，发展不平衡不充分的一个重大领域便是城乡区域发展和收入分配差距较大。依据经济学原理，城市繁荣的最大奥秘是其产生的集聚效应和规模经济，能够提供远高于乡村的劳动生产率，然而，城市化也会带来高房价、污染、拥堵等成本，这便是人们习称的“城市病”。成本与收益相权衡，资源自由流动的结果将是城乡收入趋同。然而，改革迟迟未到位的体制机制，使得资源未能在空间上得到合理配置。数以亿计的外来人口难以市民化，成为中国城市化进程的梗阻。分别按常住人口和户籍人口计算的城镇化率显著背离。

In contemporary China, a significant area of unbalanced, incomplete development is the wide urban-rural gap and income gap. According to economic principles, the biggest secrets to urban prosperity lie in economies of agglomeration and scale, which can provide far higher labor productivity than the countryside. However, urbanization also brings costs like higher property prices, pollution and traffic congestion — what people habitually call “city diseases.”

When costs are balanced against benefits, the result of the free flow of resources will be the convergence of urban and rural incomes. But China’s slow and incomplete systemic and regulatory reforms mean that resources cannot be reasonably allocated across these spaces. The difficulty of transforming hundreds of millions of rural migrants into city residents has become an obstacle to the progress of Chinese urbanization. Indeed, urbanization rates differ markedly depending on whether they are calculated according to the number of permanent residents in a given place or according to the number of people with household registration permits for that place.

多年来，户籍改革不断推进，但已进入深水区。近年来，相关讨论也不再热烈。有关部门提出新型城镇化建设重点任务时，放宽户籍限制的思路是按城市人口规模来分级施策：城区常住人口100 万—300万的Ⅱ型大城市要全面取消落户限制，城区常住人口300万—500万的Ⅰ型大城市要全面放开放宽落户条件，但对于超大特大城市则偏于严格控制。通过户口积分，得以在超大城市落户的外来人口几乎可以忽略不计。人们似乎平静地接受了这一思路。

China has been moving forward with household registration reform for many years, but now finds itself in the so-called “deep waters” of the issue. In recent years, the tone of the debate has become less impassioned. When the relevant government departments have spoken about the key tasks of building new-style urbanization, the thinking behind relaxing household registration restrictions has been to implement a differentiated set of policies depending on the population size of each city.

To this end, class-2 large urban areas with between 1 million and 3 million permanent residents will completely dispense with registration restrictions, and class-1 large urban areas with between 3 million and 5 million permanent residents will relax the conditions for registration.

However, stricter limitations will remain on cities classified as “very large” and “extremely large,” for which the numbers of migrants able to settle according to the points-based household registration system can almost be ignored. People have apparently accepted this rationale without much pushback.

其实，超大特大城市最能体现城市的优势。无论是经济贡献还是劳动效率、创新能力，中小城市均远远不及大城市，对新移民的吸引力也远不如大城市。近些年来，县城和三四线城市即便放开落户限制，人口也未明显增长，便是明证。如果人口500万以上大城市的外来人口不能顺利市民化，国家的城市化整体进程就会受到严重拖累，户籍改革的意义也会大打折扣。

In fact, very large and extremely large urban areas are the best at embodying the benefits of cities. In terms of their economic contributions, labor productivity, or capacity for innovation, small and midsize cities lag far behind larger ones. They also don’t have the same attraction to migrants. The fact that population levels in county-level and third- or fourth-tier cities have not significantly risen in recent years despite relaxing household registration restrictions is ample proof of this.

If large cities of over 5 million people cannot smoothly accommodate migrants as new urban citizens, it will place a severe burden on the overall progress of urbanization in China and gut the significance of household registration reform.

对于特大城市放宽落户限制，人们总有这样那样的担心。实证研究表明，不少担心并无依据。比如，一项针对98个主要城市的研究表明，平均而言，一个城市同样路段的通勤时间在拥堵时期是非拥堵时期的1.64倍；即使就业人口翻倍，这个倍数也仅仅增加到约1.68倍。在水资源和污染等问题上，研究成果也否认了想当然的焦虑。城市病是由人口过多造成，还是主要由治理能力欠缺所致，还需要认真辨析。由于坚持严控人口规模，与全球领先的大城市相比，中国的大城市远未达到最优规模。基于人口大趋势，中国城乡人口迁移已过高峰期，未来，许多大城市可能会苦于劳动力资源不足。

People always bring up the same concerns whenever someone floats the idea of relaxing registration restrictions in extremely large cities. But empirical research shows that many of these concerns are unfounded. For example, a study of 98 major cities found that the same commute in a given city takes on average 1.64 times longer during rush hour than at off-peak times. Even if the number of employed people in that city were doubled, the commute would only take 1.68 times longer during rush hour.

Other research into the impact of urban growth on water resources or pollution has also rejected several concerns that many people take as a given. As a result of our strict controls on population size, China’s large cities have not yet reached their optimum scale compared with their leading global counterparts. Based on larger demographic trends, rural-urban migration in China has already passed its peak. Indeed, in the future many cities may struggle with labor shortfalls.

外来人口市民化滞后不可避免地会产生一系列严重后果。因不能顺利落户，外来人口消费潜力不能得到释放，这必将限制内需扩大，影响“内循环”的运行。另外，一座城市需要各种层次的人才以形成有机整体。人为排斥某一层次，必将扭曲劳动分工，降低劳动生产率，影响城市的竞争力和可持续发展，进而损害国家竞争力。

Failing to bring migrants into the urban fold will unavoidably trigger a series of severe consequences. Unable to easily resettle, the consumption potential of migrants will remain untapped, curbing the expansion of domestic demand and dragging at so-called “internal circulation.”

In addition, because cities need all types of labor to form an organic whole, the exclusion of people from certain social strata will distort the division of labor and bring down productivity, impacting the competitiveness and sustainable development of cities and China as a whole.

众所周知，在中国，户籍制度之所以重要，是因为其绑定了公共服务。在大城市，特别是超大特大城市，教育、医疗等公共品严重不足。以教育为例，一方面是农村教育空心化现象日益严重，一方面是外来人口子女很难在大城市接受教育，特别是难以入读公办学校，沦为留守儿童，多年来，已发生多起令人痛心的人间悲剧。在延续大半年的新冠疫情中，大城市的公办和民营教育机构又是冰火两重天，不少民办教育机构举步维艰，甚至倒闭。幼师群体境遇堪忧，有些外来人口子女被迫返乡。

It is common knowledge that the importance of the household registration in China is bound up with access to public services. In large cities, especially the biggest ones, there are severe shortages of public goods like education and medical care. Look at education, for instance: While the “hollowing-out” of rural schooling continues apace, migrant children in large cities still find it hard to attend public schools, with the result that many stay in their country hometowns and become “left-behind children.” This phenomenon has been at the center of a number of human tragedies in recent years. Against the background of the coronavirus outbreak, private educational institutions in large cities are caught in a bind, with many ones in financial distress or at risk of bankruptcy. Kindergarten teachers also face particular uncertainty, and some migrant children have been forced to return home.

推进户籍改革，并推动其与公共服务分离，是既定的方向。公共服务的供给应视人口规模而定，令人口规模适应公共服务供给能力是本末倒置、削足适履。诚然，外来人口市民化面临许多困难，既有体制纠葛，又有财政成本，涉及养老、医疗、教育等许多棘手问题，需要央地财政关系等全面协调。但是，这些困难不是外来人口市民化止步于超大特大城市的理由。满足人民对美好生活的向往，是政府的责任。

China has already started down the path toward pushing for household registration reform and promoting its separation from public services. The supply of public services should be set according to the size of the local population; trying to shape the local population to fit the supply of public services is like chopping off your toes to fit your shoes.

Admittedly, the incorporation of migrants into China’s cities still faces many difficulties, including systemic entanglements and fiscal costs of tricky issues like pensions, health care and education. These require comprehensive adjustments to the fiscal relationships between central and local governments. However, these difficulties are not a reason for preventing migrants from registering their permanent homes in China’s largest cities. The role of government, after all, is to satisfy the desires of the people to live better lives.

必须承认人类在城市发展规律面前的认知局限。一个典型事例是，一些大城市过往在制定五年规划时，对人口规模的预计总是保守，以规划为基准的公共服务自然也严重不足。有些大城市还曾大量裁撤幼儿园和中小学，很大程度上造成了今天的被动。城市人口决定于产业结构和规模，这离不开政府的引导，但却绝不是有关部门可以设计出来的。在建设创新型国家的今天，计划经济思维更加落伍，城市发展问题上尤其如此。

It must be admitted that there are limits to our knowledge about the development norms of people in cities. A classic example is how some cities have consistently given conservative estimates of their populations during previous five-year plans, with the result that public services, which are allocated according to the criteria outlined in the plans, naturally come under increased pressure. Some large cities have previously also made dramatic cuts to the number of kindergartens and primary and middle schools, which have helped create, to a great extent, the fluctuations we see today. Urban populations are decided by industrial structures. Governments at all levels will play indispensable roles in the evolution of industries, but no government can design it exactly. In building the innovative country of today, we previously dispensed with the planned economy. The urban development question requires the same kind of approach.

加快外来人口市民化，将带来中国城镇化进程的飞跃，也将产生又一轮体制改革红利。正如学者所言，如果在城市加强基础设施和公共服务的供给侧改革，加快外来人口的市民化，可以使潜在的最优城市规模扩大，同时实现经济增长、生活宜居与社会和谐三个目标。城市化说到底是人的城市化。只要体制理顺，人是城市的财富，而不是包袱。

Accelerating the incorporation of rural migrants into China’s cities will represent a leap forward for the country’s urbanization drive and herald another round of benefits gleaned from undertaking systemic reforms. As the scholars say, if cities strengthen supply-side reform of infrastructure and public services, and accelerate the urbanization of rural migrants, cities enlarge in optimal scope while also realizing the triple targets of economic growth, livability and social harmony. In the final analysis, urbanization is about people. As long as we streamline the system, people will be source of a city’s wealth, not a burden.

The Chinese version of this article was published in Caixin Weekly on Aug. 31, 2020, and is only available for Caixin Global’s app users. To unlock more bilingual articles, download the Caixin app.

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