After the Citizenization: Can Household Registration Change Eliminate the Consumption Gap?

Abstract

The urban-rural consumption gap under the infl uence of the household registration system is a social issue with Chinese characteristics. Can the current reform of the household registration system eliminate this gap? Using the survey data from Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP), this paper adopts the methods of Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and RIF (Re-centered Infl uence Function) Quantile Decomposition to quantitatively analyze the impact of changes in household registration on the consumption level of "urban hukou (household registration) obtainers" and the infl uence mechanism. Studies show: (1) There is still a signifi cant diff erence in the consumption level between "urban hukou obtainers" and urban natives after the citizenization, and the consumption gap between the two groups is even greater after taking endogenous problems into consideration; (2) The impact of the citizenization on the consumption level of "urban hukou obtainers" has a signifi cant heterogeneity. There are signifi cant consumption diff erences due to diff erent sources of the household registration, and this consumption gap has an expanding trend over time; (3) By decomposition, it is found that such consumption gap mainly comes from the gaps in income and social security between the two groups and its mechanism has been confi rmed.

Does improving basic public health services promote household consumption of rural migrant workers? Evidence from China

“…Among the control variables, significantly negative coefficients are found on , indicating that older rural migrant workers spend less on consumption compared to younger people ( 5 ). The significantly positive coefficients on , , , , and represent that consumption will increase when the respondent is an employer or a member of the Communist Party of China, not married, and have high level of education ( 4 , 38 ). For household characteristics, lager family size or local size means higher consumption expenditure, which is similar to some previous studies ( 44 ).…”

“…In other words, rural migrant workers can receive equal protection in employment, pension, medical care, education, housing and other aspects. The improvement of consumption power and the change of consumption willingness inevitably increase the household consumption demand and their marginal propensity to consume, especially in aspects such as culture, entertainment, transportation and communication ( 38 ). Therefore, this study proposes the following research hypothesis: Hypothesis 3 : The enhancement of BPHS can promote rural migrant workers’ household consumption by increasing citizenization willingness.…”