Evaluating the Effect of Non-localized immigrants

on Crime Rate of Big Cites in China

Presentors: Jie Zhang, Xiuxia Yin

Motivation:

v China’s Hukou System has long

been studied by both domestic
and international scholars

v Most of previous research is about

How the system affects rural and
urban inequality

v Or how the system influence welfare

and mobility of rural and urban
immigrants
Motivation:

v According to our limited knowledge,

there is few papers investigating the
connection of Hukou Registration
System and crime rate of big cities in China

v With the aim of filling this research gap

and with Instrumental Variable Approcah,

this proposal try to identify the causal effect

of Non-localized immigrants on crime rate of
big cities in China
 Main Objective---Underlying Assumption

v This research is based on the Hukou Registration System Reform in 2014 which is called Point-
Based Hukou Registration Reform.

v So the instrument variable is 2014 Hukou Registration reform,

v The treatment variable is Ratio of Non-localized immigrants

v Outcome variable is Crime Rate of Big Cities

 Main Objective---Underlying Assumption

v the reform is actually a barrer for internal immigrants to obtain Urban Identity in super big cities.

v Since big cites have more job opportunity, much higher salary and much
better city amenities, the total number of internal immigration from other cities to these big cities
will not slow down

v Because of this reform, more and more immigrants now can not be localized which means they can
not be Urban Registered.

v the ratio of non-localized immigrants will be higher now. This will incur many social problems in big
cities. Such as discrimination, inequality in enjoy public service or increase crime rate

With this underlying assumption, we therefore check How the How the Non-localized immigrants
Affect the Crime Rate of Big Cities in China.
 Introduction of Hukou System and Its Reform

v First Stage: -------Before and During Mao Era, from 1958 to 1976

Hukou System was implemented in 1958.

It was designed as a tool to enforcé Strict migration control and Prevent mass urbanization in the course
of China´s Big Push towards industrialization

The system divides urban residents (non-agricultural Hukou) and rural residents (agricultural Hukou)

Urban Residents benefited from privileges and access to entitlements provided by the state (health care,
Education and housing)

In this stage, conversion from rural to ruban Hukou was seldom permitted!!!!
 Introduction of Hukou System and Its Reform
v Second Stage-----Loosening of the Hukou System from 1979 to 1991

from 1979--1984

The system starts to becomes more locally-administered

it becomes easier for individuals with rural hukou to move to urban areas.

v IMPORTANT: Their hukou can not change AND

those with rural hukou cannot access social services in urban areas

From 1984 to 1991

temperorary residence permits were given to rural-urban migrants so they can legally work and
live in areas outside of their Hukou Registration

Again temperoray residents with rural Hukou do not have access to many social services
in Urban Areas

Temprorary Residence permits were replaced by Residents´ Personal Identification Card

This PIC allows workers to work and remain in a city different from The Hukou Ristration Place
Still prevents them from accessing public services there, such as retirement benefits and health cares
 Introduction of Hukou System and Its Reform

Third Stage-----From 1992 to 2013: Opening of the Hukou System

At this stage, Hukou system was updated to facilitate the movement

Of highly skilled individuals as they relocated to big cities.

Immigrants meet certain requirements could move their Hukou registration to city where they work

For example, in Shanghai,

People who invested 1 million RMB (equals to 144,611.07 Euros) in designated áreas,
who bought comercial properties,
held profesional title of a stable job

could apply for Residency Registration of Shanghai, become a localized ¨Shanghai People¨

Some other cities implemented Point—Based Hukou Registration System where rural migrant worker
could accumulate points to obtain a Residency Registration in cities where they work
Three categories of population
recorded in china

Residence refer to those people who live in this place and register Hukou here; who live in this place at
least half a year but without Hukou registration here; who leave this place at least half a year and still
keep Hukou registration here.
Registered residence population (people with Hukou in local place): the people registered Hukou in local
place, whenever and wherever they go, as long as their registration of Hukou kept here, they will be
calculated as population having Hukou in their registration places.
Non-localized immigrants refers to the population separated from the place of Hukou registration.
 Hukou reform in 2014

• Aim : to adjust Hukou transfer comprehensively; to unify rural-urban Hukou registration system; let 1 billion
migrant workers and other residents complete Hukou registration in urban cities.
• Principals :
• (1)Fully open Hukou registration in small cities and towns. People who having legal and stable residence, they and
their family members can apply local Hukou.
• (2) Orderly release restrictions on the registration of medium-sized cities. Cities which population is between 500
thousands and 1 million have requirements on both residence and employment.
• (3)To determine the registration conditions of large cities reasonably and cautiously. Cities with population of 3
million to 5 million should appropriately control the scale and pace of registration and make stricter requirements
in terms of the years of living, employing and other activities for applicants.
• (4) Strictly control the population size of super-big cities. Improve the current policy in cities with a population of
more than 5 million and complete the point-based Hukou registration system.
 Hukou reform in 2014

• Based on the principals issued by the central government, local governments established more standardized
and complete Hukou registration system depends on their reality.

• Overall, registration in smaller cities is more freely and easier, while in bigger cities, restrictions are higher
and more complicated. On one hand, small cities can absorb more population, on the other hand, to get a
local hukou in big cities is more difficult and slower.

• The reform is the most comprehensive ,effective and thorough from 1990s in Hukou registration.
 Before and After 2014 Reform

.25
share of population without hukou
.2
.15
.1

2000 2005 2010 2015 2020

year

Sample average within bin Polynomial fit of order 3

 Migration and Crime

Many historical studies focus on crime and migration.

• Shiyun Zhang (2022) applied Engelhardt et al. (2008) model and illustrates that Immigration affects workers’
criminal behavior by changing workers’ distribution and increasing labor market tightness. Compared to
skilled immigrants, unskilled immigrants are more likely to commit crimes because of poor outside
options.(Review of Economic Dynamics)

• grants are more likely to commit crimes because of poor outside options. Venatus V. Kakwagh (2019)
establish the link between rural-urban migration of youth and crime in Anyigba town of Dekina local
government area of Kogi State-Nigeria. It has shown that on getting into the urban centres, they face the
problem of unemployment in the formal sector and therefore end up in the informal sector where incomes
are low and intermittent.

• Ziwei Qi (2020) utilized judicial decisions from the Intermediate Level Courts in Guangzhou, Guangdong
province, China, to explore the relationship between rural migration, sentencing disparity, and crime. The
current study shows that rural migrant offenders are predominantly undereducated and underemployed at
the time of offenses. (International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice)
 Migration and crime in China

• In China, there are 3 billion migrants move among cities without getting local Hukou. Since Hukou is related
to public service ,including education and health service, which will increase their financial and mental
pressure if they don’t have it in residence place.

• Employers is also more likely to hire workers with local Hukou because they are more stable in one place.
Migrants without Hukou have higher risk of facing unemployment.

• Hukou registration restriction also exclude those people who are low-skilled or less-educated to some
extend. From previous study, the two factors are also the source of crime.
 Migration and crime in China

Rank by ratio of migrants ratio Rank by ratio if crime

without Hukou
Dongguan 0.703397 Guangzhou
Shenzhen 0.631827 Shenzheng
Zhongshan 0.458905 Chongqing
Foshan 0.434609 Wuhan
Shanghai 0.394121 Nanjing
Chongqing 0.391375 Xian
Guangzhou 0.376894 Tianjin
Zhuhai 0.341355 Jilin
Suzhou 0.327808 Shengyang
Tianjin 0.290461 Chengdu
 Methodology
1.To control for the problem of endogeneity,2SLS is going to be adopted in the empirical study.
• does a positive association between the migrant share and crime rates across cities?

• First stage equation: ration of Non-localized immigrants it = α + γ1policyt+ γ2Xit+ εit

• Second stage equation: ratio_crimeit= α + β1Non-localized immigrants it + γ2Xit + μit

• 2.Robustness check
• Since the Hukou reform is restricted in different size of cities, so we’ll do regressions in several groups.
Specifically, we divide cities into class 1 (having population less one 1 million),class 2(having population 3
million to 5 million) and class 3 (having population more than 5 million).
 Data

1. The number of Non-localized immigrants can be calculated.

• The number of Non-localized immigrants =number of residence-number of people registered hukou locally
• Ratio of Non-localized immigrants =the number of Non-localized immigrants /residence
• We can combine National Bureau statistics and Local Bureau Statistics datasets to find the number of
residence and number of people having Hukou (1996-2019) http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/pcsj/

2. The ratio of crime=(number of arrests of each city/residence of each city )×10000

• We can collect the number of arrests from annual reports of each local procuratorate(2000-2020), for
example, this link is the website of procuratorate of Shanghai province https://www.sh.jcy.gov.cn
Data
 Summary and Conclusion

v To check how the Hukou Registration Reform in 2014 affect crime rate of big cities in China,
this research proposal adopts Instrumental variable Approach

v With data from National Bureau statistics and Local Bureau Statistics, we identify ratio of non-localized
immigration which serves as treatment variable
and with data from annual reports of each local procuratorate, we identify the outcome variable which is
crime rate of big cities of China

v The possible mechanism is: the reform in 2014 make hukou registration stricter and less immigrants could
be localized, more immigrants are non-localized, this makes them be discriminated in terms of access to
welfare service and labor market participation. They might be source of crime, so our anticipation is
this reform eventually might increase crime rate of big cities
 Summary and Conclusion
Contribución:

v Our research proposal might be the first in connecting Hukou System Reform 2014 with crime rate
of big cites.

v Our research approach enables us to get causal effect of Non-localized immigrants on the crime rate
which has great policy implication. We anticípate a positive causal effect and we suggest
the refom might be a Good Way to control population size of big cities, but it has caused negative
social influence.

v It is better to find alternative way to change the immigration direction. For example,
the central government could invest more in developing economic of middle and medium-sized cities
and the government of middle and medium-sized cities could attract immigrants by offering better
salary or better city amenities
Thans for Listenning !

The End