Shanghai has amended a key rule and the approval process for its residence certificate, or hukou, which will come as a great relief to many people from all over China who call Shanghai home.

Under the system, the newborn children of out-of-towners with steady jobs in the city are now eligible for the full social benefits of lifetime local residents, including medical and educational.

It's a major change in hukou policies as in recent years the city has tightened criteria and strictly limited access to the documentation for non-locals.

The Shanghai Public Security Bureau said yesterday it renewed the rules, effective from March 2008, after approaches from a city advisory body member.

The member told the city government in February that Shanghai would lose many talented people from out of town unless unattractive hukou polices were changed.

The new rule stipulates that a child born to out-of-towners should enjoy the same social benefits as his or her local counterparts as long as one parent has a Shanghai group hukou. This hukou is designed for out-of-town graduates or talented people who work in the city.

The baby will be allowed to share the group hukou with the parent under the new rule.

In the past, such a family, with one parent holding a Shanghai group hukou, must buy an apartment in Shanghai so the hukou could be transferred from "group"' to "private household." Only after that, could the newborn be allowed to have the local hukou.

The "group" could be a company, a state-owned operation or the city government's talent agency. Out-of-towners with group hukou are granted the same social benefits as Shanghai locals.

A group hukou is normally the only residential certificate available to non-locals as the eligibility conditions for a normal hukou are stringent.

The old policy was still challenging as not many of the group hukou holders working in Shanghai could afford to buy an apartment.

Shen Yihua, the advisory-body member, suggested in February that the city should streamline this rule.

For a family planning to settle in Shanghai, getting the child a hukou is critical, particularly for schooling.

"Say I marry a non-local in future," said Yang Jie, a 28-year-old single woman working for a city media outlet. "Under the old rules I couldn't get my child a Shanghai hukou. That means huge extra fees to get my child into local kindergarten, primary and middle schools."

Yang's hometown is Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province.

"A more serious issue under the old rules is that after the child finishes high school in Shanghai, he or she must return to our hometown to take part in the college-entrance exams,'' Yang said.

Shanghai has its own exam papers, which are totally different from the national ones used by other cities in the country.

Shanghai made hukou rules stricter in 2002 when the city canceled some policies including one that enabled out-of-towners, who had purchased a local apartment, to apply for a "blue stamp hukou" after paying between 20,000 yuan (US$2,932) and 40,000 yuan in fees.

The hukou system of household registration dates back to the 1950s in China.

(Shanghai Daily October 10, 2008)