Don’t bother checkingYUAN QUAN has beaten the odds as a young woman from a small mountainous city in Hubei, a province in central China. She earned one of the few spots available to non-local students at a prestigious university in Beijing and has been living in the capital for 14 years, working as a television director. But the pension she will one day receive is tied to the lower costs of living in her home town, so she stands to get much less than Beijing-born colleagues. She cannot get the same cheap healthcare. If she has a child, she would have to pay far more than locals for education.
The discrimination routinely endured by less-skilled internal migrants is the subject of much debate in China. But the disadvantages suffered by those like Ms Yuan, who are well educated, are given less attention. Recent changes in the system of household registration, known as hukou, aim to remedy the plight of the highly skilled. But only a lucky few will benefit.
Everyone in China has a hukou document which registers where they were born and which gives them...Continue reading
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