Citizenization or Talent Recruitment? The Development of China’s Points-Based Hukou Channels

Points-based channels for accessing urban citizenship (hukou) have spread in a context where the Chinese central authorities have sought to facilitate migrant workers' access to hukou, a process named 'citizenization' (shiminhua). This multicase study analyses policy documents, media coverages, commercial agencies' explanations and migrants' online comments to retrace the development of points-based hukou channels between 2010 and 2022 in seven Chinese megacities. Although points-based hukou channels were initially meant for fostering migrant 'citizenization', they have been increasingly used for recruiting the most desirable migrants, so-called 'talents'. Intended to facilitate the urban integration of long-term ordinary migrant workers, the new points-based channels used criteria related to length of residence instead of mainly level of economic capital. However, adapting to guidelines imposed from the central or provincial governments while pursuing their own interests, municipal governments have made the channels more selective and more complex over the years. The discrepancy between the hopes generated by the promise of citizenization through points-based channels and the complexity of their workings and selectivity generates disappointment, and gives rise to many complaints voiced by ordinary citizens.