Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Reform of China's Household Registration System

该奖项符合SEC第五章B组的要求。《2013年综合及进一步继续拨款法案》(2013年3月26日制定的第113-6号法律公告)第543条。该项目提出了一个问题：鉴于提供社会福利面临的挑战，为什么一些不民主的地方政府扩大福利提供，而另一些地方政府则不这样做？该项目将审查国家和国际经济竞争力的激励措施如何与当地政治条件相互作用，以及由此对世界上最大的非民主国家的社会福利产生的影响。这项研究解决了影响国内政策制定和中国政治稳定的基础的问题。中国是否获得社会福利取决于户籍。在过去的50年里，户籍制度将每个城市的人口分为两类：有户口的人和没有户口的人。2003年，中央政府发起了一场全国性的运动，旨在让这一制度更加公平，但一些为社会福利提供资金的地方政府抵制了这一运动。地方政府不愿将福利分配给更多的城市人口，因为这使他们能够保持较低的工资水平，并保持中国的劳动力比较优势。中国各地对经济投资的竞争导致了社会福利的扩大，潜在地提高了中国收入最低的工人的工资和城乡一体化。对中国福利制度的改革可能会大幅减少中国的低工资劳动力池，从而增加生产成本，从而增加中国廉价出口的成本。这在两个方面影响了美国的经济利益。首先，改革可能会增加中国的出口成本，大大增加中国贸易伙伴的成本。其次，改革旨在提高中国的投资竞争力，这对美国投资者来说意味着一个新的、不断变化的环境。更好地理解中国的国内政治对美国的安全利益也很重要。只有深入、知情的田野调查才能揭示改革对中国全球竞争力的真正影响。研究设计将定性案例研究与对中国所有直辖市的原始大N数据集的统计分析相结合。该项目的智力优势与三个关键领域有关。首先，它通过探索威权背景下的新福利制度，扩大了对社会福利制度的理解。在全球范围内，社会福利国家正面临限制福利以促进经济利益的压力；在发展中的威权环境中，这种情况更有可能发生。第二，本研究将加深对劳动力市场操纵与社会福利之间关系的理解。最后，这项研究将扩大对公民身份的含义和一个重要的发展中、威权国家公民权利的理解。更广泛的影响包括几项贡献。这项研究的结果将在会议上提出，收集的数据将公之于众，两名专门从事法律研究的研究生研究助理将接受定性数据收集方面的培训。

This award satisfies Division B, Title V, Sec. 543 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6, enacted on March 26, 2013). The project asks the question: given the challenges to providing social welfare, why do some non-democratic local governments expand welfare provision while others do not? The project will examine how incentives for national and international economic competitiveness interact with local political conditions and the resulting impact on social welfare in the world's largest non-democracy. The research addresses issues that affect domestic policy-making and the foundations of political stability in China.Access to social welfare in China is dependent on household registration status. For the last fifty years, the household registration system has divided every city's population into two classes: those with access and those without. The national government began a national campaign in 2003 to make the system more equitable, but some local governments, which fund social welfare, resisted. Local governments prefer not to distribute welfare to a greater number of the urban population because this allows them to keep wages low and maintain China's comparative labor advantage. Competition across Chinese localities for economic investment leads to expansion in social welfare, potentially increasing wages and urban-rural integration for China's lowest paid workers. Reforms to China's welfare system may dramatically reduce China's low-wage labor pool, increasing the costs of production, thereby increasing the cost of China's cheap exports. This impacts U.S. economic interests in two ways. First, the reforms could increase the costs of China's exports, greatly increasing costs to China's trading partners. Second, reforms aim to increase China's competitiveness for investment, suggesting a new and changing environment for American investors. Better understanding China's domestic politics is important for US security interests as well. Only in-depth, informed fieldwork will illuminate the true consequences of reforms for China's global competitiveness. The research design combines qualitative case studies with statistical analysis of an original, large-N dataset of all China's municipalities.The project's intellectual merit is linked to three critical areas. First, it expands understanding of social welfare regimes by exploring a new welfare regime in an authoritarian setting. Globally, social welfare states are under pressure to limit welfare benefits so as to advance economic interests; this is even more likely in developing, authoritarian settings. Second, this research will enhance understanding of the relationship between labor market manipulation and social welfare. Finally, this research will expand understanding of the meaning of citizenship and the rights of citizens in an important developing, authoritarian country. The broader impacts include several contributions. Findings from this research will be presented at conferences, data collected will be made publicly available, and two graduate research assistants with specialization in legal studies will be trained in qualitative data collection.