Does the Revised Hukou System Facilitate or Restrain the Short-Term Labor Inflows into Chinese Cities?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article describes an interesting issue of influence of the revised Hukou system to the facilitate or restraint of short-term labor inflows into Chinese cities.

 This issue is current and important from the point of view of the functioning of the labor market.The title is adequate to the research problem being undertaken. The correct terminology was used.The technical part of the article does not raise any objections. The work is aesthetic.Footnotes and bibliography are correctly formulated.

 

The introduction section should provide more literature review.  As for the issue analyzed since the 1950s, the literature review is modest. It is particularly important to show the impact of the Hukou system on the phenomenon of migration and city development. The article lacks consideration of this aspects.

The individual stages of the study are clearly enumerate. However, the article's goals and research hypotheses are missing. It's difficult to analyze an article if you don't know the purpose of the research (main goal should be present at the beginning of the article).

 

In general, the literature review is modest. It should be improved in all sections.

I can't quite find the information if similar analysis has been carried out before? And if so, in what context? In my opinion, authors should consider swapping point 2 and 3. This would be more chronological.

 

Throughout the article some phenomena are indicated, but without specifying specific numbers or percentages, or without reference to literature. Example: "As the government’s expenditure on the public service sector increases, urbanization would progress and the living environment of the citizens would improve" But we don't see any data."The size of public welfare facilities such as hospitals and public transportation are often considered in many studies as indicators of urbanization" But there is no citation.

 

The used models were clear descibed.  Authors should discuss why they chose data for 2010-2014.

 

There is no answer to the question whether the system created in the 1950s and then updated in the 1980s (slightly liberalized in 2001) is still relevant? necessary? contemporary?

was the critical opinion on the Hukou system presented? I'm not convinced of this.

 

Author Response

Thank you for your review and valuable comments.

Specific response to review comments is added to the attachment.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is too brief. Therefore, it would be advisable that you should expand on the introduction, background and previous literature.

First, you should describe the bibliographical references in the first paragraph, those listed from 1 to 9, which simply introduce them without explaining their contributions to situating this study.

Second, you should explain better how is the recent CFPS [The China Family Panel studies (CFPS) by the Institute of Social Science Survey (ISSS) of Peking University.

Third, you should expand on the influence of the reforms that the Hukou System has had on the relationship with the demographic and economic changes that have occurred in China. They paper ensures trends and changes but does not justify them with references from other works or studies.

You mention that "Analysis on population movements in 5 European countries from 1980 to 1990.... showed that labor forces preferred to move to cities with great market benefits because of the economic gap, and primarily migrated to regions where abundant consumer goods and life conveniences were available" but practically does not provide references and European studies, only the 20th citation.

You could also make references not only from Chinese literature to the demographic changes from rural to urban areas, because it has been a trend also from developed areas in European countries.

The design of the work should also be clarified. It should specify whether the data it uses refer to a specific area or to all the provinces that have adopted the revised Hukou system at different stages. They should also explain whether all the provinces and cities have the same demographic and economic characteristics and could include some explanatory map with their location. You should also explain whether the adult and household data are a sample or are the total size of the study population.

In the formal aspect, table 1, with the variables and analysis data, shoud be better included in the methodology section and not in the results section.

The section on Urban Inflows and table 3 are not conclusive. There is a disparity with the results in 2014 of the same models in 2010 and 2012 and you should better justify those results.

And, finally, section 6 on conclusions and discussions is far too weak. It should be done separately, a discussion section where it analyses the main contributions of the methodology used, which may not be the most correct one, and a final conclusion on the design of the work and its results.

Author Response

Thank you for your review and valuable comments.

Specific response to review comments is added to the attachment.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I'm pleased with the quality of improving the article.

I don't have any other requests.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

With the improvements introduced this paper can be published.