Some still face question of identity

Migrant workers without proper registration unable to make themselves at home in the cities, Jiang Xueqing reports in Beijing.

Wang Jun, 46, came to Beijing from a small town in Fengyang county, Anhui province, in 1994. He opened a hair salon with his wife in a residential area in Dongcheng district and made around 40,000 yuan ($6,458) a year. Two years later, their son was born in the capital.

However, Wang's household is still registered in Anhui province. The family left their hometown long before China's social security system was launched and therefore has no right to social security or health insurance in either Beijing or Anhui.

As a result, they have to cover their medical expenses in full every time a family member goes to a hospital.

Wang's son attended primary and secondary schools in Beijing. But last year, at the age of 16, he had to return to Anhui and enroll at a local high school so he can take the gaokao, or college entrance exam, in 2015. Without a Beijing hukou, China's system of household registration, the young man is not allowed to take the exam in the city where he was born.

"I've been living here for almost 20 years, but I still don't feel like a Beijing resident," said Wang, who is now looking to the government to eliminate the policies that affect migrant workers and relieve the family's concerns about social security, health insurance and their child's education.

Those problems may well be answered soon. The central government is working on a national plan for urbanization, which is likely to be launched before the end of the first half of this year. One of the key ways of measuring the relative success or failure of the policy will be how well the government handles the task of ensuring that every citizen gains an equal share of the benefits of urbanization.

The plan aims to boost domestic demand and provide a guideline for the healthy and orderly development of urbanization, said Zhang Ping, then chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a media briefing during the first session of the 12th National People's Congress in Beijing.