Max Weber traces the source of inequality to three types of exclusion: social, economic and legal exclusion.1 The first type is exclusion through social distancing or discrimination. The hukou identification generates social exclusion, because it has created a psychology of perceiving those with rural hukou as inferior. This is verified by the studies done by the psychologists at Beishida. The psychologists found that when university students who possessed urban hukou were primed that the hukou was abolished through false articles, they became less discriminatory as they showed less social distancing behaviours; conversely when primed that hukou remained, the level of discrimination remain unchanged.2 Hence, their studies confirm that hukou contributes to social exclusion as urban subjects tend to distant themselves from those with rural hukou.
Weber’s second type of exclusion is economic exclusion. In China, it consists of preventing rural migrants from accessing economic opportunities and rewards. In human resource management, this is especially true. In a study conducted in late 2006 in which 12 firms were investigated, it is revealed that the recruitment process is heavily based on hukou. For instance, renting rural migrant workers instead of recruiting allow firms to deny them social security benefits on the excuse that the land possessed by rural migrants provides a safety net.3 Practices such as renting rural migrants ossified the notion among HR managers that rural workers are incapable of specialised jobs.4 Hence, rural workers are reduced to auxiliary positions with no career prospects and with a wage that is 33 to 86 percent of their urban counterparts.5 Evidently, rural workers are denied fair economic opportunities and rewards because of hukou identification.
8881. M., Weber. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1958.)
8882. L., Kuang & L. Liu. “Discrimination against Rural-to-Urban Migrants: The Role of theHukou System in China.” PLoS ONE 7(11), 2012.
8883. M., Zhang, C. Nyland & C. Zhu. “Hukou-based HRM in contemporary China: the case of Jiang-su and Shanghai.” Asia Pacific Business Review, 16(3), 2010.
8884. Ibid. 3
8885. Ibid. 3
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