Boosting rural property right through land reform. Rural people’s basic needs are ensured by the household contract responsibility system with remuneration linked to output, introduced after the launch of reform and opening up in 1978, and their burden is eased with the abolition of agricultural taxes and fees.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, measures have been taken to ensure that rural land contracting practices will remain stable and unchanged on a long-term basis. The system for separating the ownership, contractual, and management rights for contracted rural land has improved. Farmers have the right to possess, use and benefit from the contracted land, and can transfer or mortgage their management right. The government ensures rural households’ usufruct of their landholdings. It aims to help rural people increase income from property and endowing them with more property rights.

As of 2020, all 31 provinces and equivalent administrative units had begun to certify the rights to contracted land, confirming the contractual right to 100 million ha of land, upgrading 200 million land contracts, and issuing 200 million land contractual management certificates.

Improving the lives of migrant workers. The per capita monthly income of migrant workers increased from RMB2,290 in 2012 to RMB4,072 in 2020. Migrant workers in cities now enjoy much better housing, with a per capita living area of 21.5 sq m. 85.4 percent of them have showers, 94.8 percent have access to the internet, 67 percent have refrigerators, 68.1 percent have washing machines, and 30.8 percent have automobiles for private or business use.

Caring for family members of migrant workers left behind in rural areas. Policies have been introduced to boost employment for poverty alleviation and more people are returning to their hometowns to work or start businesses. There is also help to enable the children of migrant workers to go to school in cities where their parents work. This has resulted in a drop in the number of left-behind children, from 9 million in 2016 to 6.4 million in 2020.

The government has issued the Opinions on Further Improving the System of Care and Services for Rural Left-Behind Children and Children in Need, and the Guidelines for Labor-Intensive Enterprises to Further Strengthen Care and Services for Rural Left-Behind Children and Children in Need, to improve policy design in this regard. The government has also issued the Opinions on Strengthening Care and Services for Rural Left-Behind Women, to provide services to rural women in need, and the Opinions on Strengthening Care and Services for Rural Left-Behind Elderly, to ensure basic needs for poor elderly people through service networks covering all provinces.

Enhancing the rural living environment. To improve the living environment in rural areas, proper facilities have been created for treating household waste and domestic sewage, and solid efforts have been made to enhance toilet sanitation through the “toilet revolution”. As of 2020, more than 95 percent of villages had taken action for a cleaner environment. In 2019 and 2020, the government allocated RMB14.4 billion from central finance to subsidize the “toilet revolution” in villages, and RMB6 billion from the central budget to support programs for improving the rural living environment in the counties of central and western provinces. Monetary incentives were given to the 39 best-performing counties.

2. Increasing Protection of the Rights of Women, Children and the Elderly

Optimizing laws and policies. Since they were promulgated in the 1990s, the Law on the Protection of Minors, the Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests, and the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly have undergone multiple revisions to better serve their purpose.

A series of laws and regulations, including the Law on Maternal and Infant Health Care, the Anti-Domestic Violence Law, the Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, the Special Provisions on Labor Protection for Female Employees, the Provisions on Prohibiting the Use of Child Labor, the Regulations on School Bus Safety Management, and the Special Provisions on the Protection of Juvenile Workers, have been enacted to lay down a legal basis for protecting the rights of women, children and the elderly. The government has issued the Opinions on Establishing and Improving the Mechanism for Evaluating Gender Equality Implications in Laws, Regulations and Policies, to codify and institutionalize the basic national policy of gender equality and promote the all-round development of women.

The Civil Code promulgated in 2020 includes articles regarding the right of habitation, the common debts of spouses, and measures to prevent and stop sexual harassment, further strengthening protection for the three groups. The Chinese government has developed three outlines and plans for the development of women, three for children, and five for the elderly.