Hukou reform, they believe, could boost rural-urban migration and with it the consumer spending China needs.
This time, says an editor involved in the hukou editorial, the impact was the opposite.
Children with a rural hukou want to lead a better life than their parents did.
ECONOMIST: Problems for migrants: ��Don��t complain about things that you can��t change�� | The
One of the greatest issues for China's 250 million migrant workers is the "hukou" system of household registration.
The system allows a person to hold only one hukou, but some find ways to bend the rules.
Urban citizens benefit from the hukou system, but those who migrate between cities are also irked by it.
Hukou, however, still counts for a lot, from access to education, health care and housing to compensation payouts.
Since it relaxed its policy in August last year it has given urban hukou to more than 1.7m people.
" Hukou and consumption heterogeneity", by Binkai Chen, Ming Lu and Ninghua Zhong.
Although Chinese officials define the population as being already nearly 50% urban, the number of urban hukou holders is only around 35%.
Critics also point out that the social-housing programme will mostly benefit urban residents, whose household-registration certificates, or hukou, identify them as city residents.
Meanwhile, a disciplinary watchdog says a public security official in Guangdong used two fake hukou to invest in real estate, Beijing Times adds.
Prospects for reform of the hukou system are only slightly better.
For years reformers have called for changes in the hukou system.
ECONOMIST: Problems for migrants: ��Don��t complain about things that you can��t change�� | The
Late last year the National Bureau of Statistics asked rural hukou holders in the north-eastern province of Jilin whether they wanted to switch to urban status.
But he still does not have a Beijing hukou.
ECONOMIST: Chinese consumption is about much more than shopping
There are conditions: they must have been working in urban areas for at least three years, or for five years if they want to transfer their hukou to the centre of Chongqing.
They have declared that holders of rural hukou in the countryside surrounding these cities can move into urban areas and enjoy the same welfare benefits as their urban counterparts without giving up their land entitlements.
In China's system of household registration (known as hukou), children born to rurally registered parents count as rural, even if their parents have migrated to the city, and regardless of where they themselves were born.
But the municipality says it wants to double the number of urban hukou holders by turning 10m of its rural citizens (some of whom already live in urban areas) into card-carrying urbanites over the next ten years.
Migrants without an urban hukou spend 30% less than otherwise similar urban residents, according to research by Binkai Chen of the Central University of Finance and Economics, Ming Lu of Fudan University and Ninghua Zhong of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
ECONOMIST: Chinese consumption is about much more than shopping
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