Seeking Happiness for People: 70 Years of Progress on Human Rights in China

IV. Effectively Ensuring That People Enjoy Their Rights

Over the 70 years since the founding of the PRC, China has continued to improve its protection of the people's economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental rights, and ensured the development of human rights in all respects.

Personal rights and dignity are well respected and protected. Personal rights and dignity are the basic components of human rights, so China has consistently attached great importance to protecting such rights over the past 70 years. The Constitution of the PRC states that the personal dignity of citizens of the PRC is inviolable. The 19th CPC National Congress again emphasized the protection of personal rights, property rights and right to dignity, demonstrating the humane view of protecting people's personal dignity and promoting the well-rounded development of the individual person. The Civil Law in particular elaborates the right to dignity. China is now accelerating the reform of the household registration system. It has relaxed restrictions on the change of domicile, enabling eligible permanent residents with stable employment in urban areas to localize their residency. Inviolability of residence, freedom of correspondence and security of information are fully protected by law.

China fully safeguards workers' rights. Before the founding of the PRC, a large part of the urban workforce was unemployed. At the end of 1949 there were 180.82 million people across the country in employment, of whom only 15.33 million worked in urban areas. The urban unemployment rate was 23.6 percent. The employment situation has steadily improved over the past 70 years. By the end of 1978, the year when the policy of reform and opening up was adopted, the employed population had reached 401.52 million. After that, thanks to rapid economic growth and a policy that prioritizes employment, China's employed population expanded rapidly. During the six years from the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012 to 2018, over 13 million new jobs were created each year, and the total employed population in 2018 reached 775.86 million. The registered unemployment rate remained at a low level below 4.1 percent for a long period of time.