One word marks the lives of Chinese people from the cradle and is an increasingly thorny headache for Beijing: “hukou”

China’s hukou household registration system ties access to education, healthcare, pensions, housing and other services to a person’s official place of registration.

Designed to manage migration and resource allocation, it now disadvantages millions of internal migrants living away from their registered hometowns.

Changing hukou remains difficult because of work, residency and bureaucratic requirements.

The system deepens urban-rural inequality and is increasingly seen as outdated in China’s demographic reality.