Tang Jianbo, who works in a Shenzhen electronics factory, faces a 800km trip to his hometown in Hunan to get the documents needed to get his four-year-old son into a local government school. Mr Tang, 31, has lived in the booming Chinese city for almost 10 years, but does not have the hukou, or residency rights, that would automatically entitle his son to a place in a government school.
Guangdong, China’s southernmost province, has 37m migrants and many jump through hoops to gain the points needed to attain residency rights under a complicated application system – some even give blood to boost their chances of success in the hukou lottery.
Now regulations introduced in Shenzhen and Guangzhou – the province’s two most populous cities – to broaden eligibility for hukou are being criticised for doing just the opposite, because they favour people with college degrees and wealth.