[Frontier Observation] Expanding the openness of household registration is conducive to attracting talents and promoting mobility
Recently, Shanghai's settlement policy has further liberalized first-class university graduates.
The "2020 Non-Shanghai Freshmen College Graduates Applying for Employment in Shanghai's Household Registration Grading Measures" proposes to use Peking University and Tsinghua University as pilots to explore the establishment of new graduates who are domestic high-level universities at the undergraduate level. The policy of “can be settled directly in compliance with the basic application requirements” has been expanded to “build a world-class university in Shanghai”.
The "construction of world-class universities in Shanghai" referred to in the "Measures" includes Shanghai Jiaotong University, Fudan University, Tongji University, and East China Normal University.
Therefore, fresh undergraduates from 4 schools can directly settle in Shanghai if they meet the basic application requirements.
This policy will undoubtedly lead to a rapid increase in the number of people settled through points, which is equivalent to a substantial expansion of the degree of openness of household registration.
Coincidentally, the Guangzhou Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau also recently issued the "Notice on Relaxing the Social Security Period for Bachelor Degree Talents in "Double First-Class" Universities (Draft for Public Comment)".
According to the "Notice", full-time young talents with a bachelor's degree or above who graduated from the "Double First-Class" construction universities announced by the state can enter their households by participating in social insurance.
The previous regulations required such persons to pay social insurance premiums in Guangzhou for six consecutive months when applying for household registration.
Restricting population movement through household registration used to play an important role in population management in the period of my country's planned economy, but in an era when market economy requires the flow of factors, it hinders the cross-regional allocation of labor, an important factor of production.
After the reform and opening up, the call for liberalization of household registration has become stronger and stronger, so the country has carried out several household registration reforms.
The basic feature of these reforms is to liberalize small towns first, and then gradually liberalize them in large cities.
At the end of 2019, the "Opinions on the Reform of the System and Mechanism for Promoting the Social Mobility of Labor and Talents" issued by the Central Office and the State Council pointed out that it is necessary to unblock and orderly flow channels, stimulate the vitality of social mobility, and use the household registration system and public services to drive regional mobility.
In recent years, the pace of my country's household registration system reform has accelerated significantly.
More and more cities have relaxed the conditions for settlement, the threshold is lower and lower, and the application procedures are becoming more and more simplified.
Among the many conditions that cities have set to attract talents in recent years, relaxing the conditions for settlement has become one of the important measures in many places.
Shanghai and Guangzhou are my country's megacities, and the continued opening of the settlement policy means that in order to promote local economic and technological development, the two places are more actively recruiting talents.
The experience of liberalizing urban household registration in the past few years has shown that relative liberalization of household registration has a major impact on attracting high-level talents. Cities that are the first to open household registration constraints will be more attractive to outstanding talents. The affiliated companies also have high human capital as support. Better development, thereby making the economy more dynamic.
In addition, the further opening of household registration in megacities is of great significance in the current economic situation.
At present, the state advocates a dual cycle of internal and external, especially the large domestic cycle driven by domestic investment and consumption.
To promote the domestic cycle, it is undoubtedly necessary to adjust the industrial structure to meet the domestic demand structure, and at the same time to increase the residents' income to increase the residents' consumption capacity, especially to increase the size of the middle-income group.
Reforming the household registration system and enhancing the mobility of the labor market are important means to promote the increase of residents’ income and domestic demand. The continuous opening of household registration, especially in large cities, is an important part and has an important role.
First, the liberalization of household registration in megacities is conducive to accelerating population agglomeration and giving play to the role of agglomeration to increase residents' income.
More than 40 years after the reform and opening up, the population continued to gather in cities and towns to increase labor productivity and improve people's lives.
In this process, megacities not only promote their own development, but also further promote the development of other regions through the division of labor with other regions.
Judging from international experience, the development of megacities is also the leader of the entire country's economic development.
Therefore, further opening of household registration in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen will help promote overall economic development.
Second, the opening of household registration in megacities is also conducive to promoting domestic demand.
The law shows that the larger the city, the more developed the service industry, and the service industry is the main pillar of current economic development.
Promoting the development of megacities is conducive to promoting the proportion of domestic demand and reducing relative external dependence.
In addition, reforming the household registration system and opening up household registration in megacities will provide workers with more and fairer employment opportunities and positions.
Equalization of opportunity will give workers sufficient motivation to create wealth and cultivate their own human capital, thus realizing a virtuous circle of economic development.
(The author is a researcher at the National Institute of Development and Strategy, Renmin University of China, and a professor at the School of Economics)
Sun Wenkai