Measurement of the real urbanization level in China and its international comparison

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to estimate the real urbanization level in China so as to provide a measurement that can be compared with the international level. Design/methodology/approach – Taking into consideration 300m residents living in the administrative towns (300m residents here are referred to the population in administrative towns, including those in all counties), the gap between the urbanization rate of China and that of the world average becomes much wider. Findings – China, however, implements the administrative system of government at the central, provincial, municipal, county and township levels. By city, it means the jurisdiction at and above the level of county, which includes the municipality directly under the central government, prefecture-level municipal and county. By town, it means the jurisdiction below the level of county (including the Chengguan Town, or capital town, where the county government is located) and exclusive of rural townships. Originality/value – China has witnessed rapid development for 40 years since the reform and opening up in 1978. Nowadays, China has already stepped into the period of post-industrialization, with its urbanization rate (UR) of permanent population reaching 58.58 percent. However, on the basis of registered population, the UR is 43.37 percent, which is not only far below the average level of 81.3 percent in high-income countries, but also lower than the average of 65.8 percent in upper middle-income countries which are comparable to China in terms of per capita income. (The classification of state income level is based on the data of national income per capita and division standards in 2016 from the World Bank, in which annual revenue per capita in highincome countries reaches over US$12,736 and that in upper middle-income countries between US$4,126 and US$12,735.)


The connections and differences between urbanization and townization
It could have been noted by some careful readers that the term "urbanization" mentioned in this paper is different from "townization," which has been used in official documents or some scholars' academic publications. Therefore, it begs several questions as to what is the distinction between urbanization and townization? Whether these two terms can be used alternatively or is one of them more scientific so that it can replace the other?

The definition of the concepts of city and town
We shall first make clear-cut definitions of and distinctions between the concepts of city and town.
According to the administrative organization system in western democracies which implements the policy of regional autonomy, both the government of cities and that of towns Dongguan (in Guangdong Province) has reached 0.6m in 2017, and the regional economic gross of both towns exceeded RMB 50bn. Besides, the population of permanent residents in Yiwu, a county-level city, has reached 1.37m in 2017, among which the number of permanent residents in downtown areas has reached 0.88m, which has far surpassed that of its prefecture-level city, Jinhua (0.8m). It indicates that the pace of the adjustment of China's administrative system severely lags behind local economic and social development.
China's "Urban Planning Law" explicitly states that "cities in this Law refer to the municipality directly under central government, municipals and towns set on the basis of administrative construction systems," which obviously includes administrative towns in the category of cities. However, cities and towns are differentiated from each other when cities of diverse sizes and small towns are mentioned together in official contexts. Therefore, it seems that the definitions of cities and townships in both broad and narrow sense can be given as below: (1) Cities in broad sense include towns while that in narrow sense exclude towns.
(2) Towns in broad sense contain cities and towns while that in narrow sense exclude cities in narrow sense.
(3) Small towns in broad sense include small cities and towns in narrow sense, whereas small towns in narrow sense mean the small ones compared with large and medium towns. Small towns in official contexts particularly indicate all townships of difference sizes.

Differences between urbanization and townization
To take urbanization or townization as the dominant strategy of national economic development remains an essential issue due to the prominent distinctions between cities and towns, even though only one character differs in Chinese. First of all, from the respect of differences between "cities" and "towns" in the corresponding two concepts, "urbanization" and "townization," the administrative level of cities is superior to that of towns. Also, generally speaking, economic and social development as well as modernization degree of cities is higher than those of towns.
Second, the Chinese character "hua" shared in the two concepts of "urbanization" and "townization" has the fundamental meaning of change and alteration [2]. According to explanation of modern Chinese, the Chinese character "hua" is an affix for word formation, which can be used after nouns or adjectives to form verbs, gerunds or adjectives, and presents the changes into certain properties or status.
Last but not the least, urbanization means citizenization of agriculturally transferred population from an overall perspective, which not only stresses the transformation from agricultural labor force to non-agricultural industries, but also emphasizes the conversion from rural inhabitants to urban residents. However, townization means the changes of many rural residents into town residents, admitting or even emphasizing the necessity and rationality of sayings such as "farmers leaving lands but not villages" "entering factories but not cities" or "entering cities without registered household," "immigrating but not settling down," etc., which is a sort of incomplete (or undone) urbanization.
1.3 Urbanization or townization, which is more scientific and rational? First, townization embodies changes of large quantity of rural inhabitants into town residents, among which many town residents have not completely detached from agricultural production. It usually results in the establishment of considerable small towns, which occupies too many cultivated lands, wastes large quantity of resources, damages the eco-system and pollutes the environment, missing the ideal effects of urbanization.

Real urbanization level in China
Urban areas are the places with the development of non-agricultural industries, urban lives, the well-beings pursued by population transferred from agriculture; urban civilization, the direction of development of rural civilization; and citizens; the ultimate identities of rural residents.
Besides, the wording of "coordinated development of large, medium, small cities and small towns" in the 16th National Congress of CPC contains contradictions: cities of diverse sizes include both cities and towns at different scales if the interpretations of cities and towns in broad sense are employed, therefore the following phrase "small towns" are redundant; if cities and towns are interpreted in narrow sense, towns apart from cities include medium and large towns instead of the small ones only. Administrative towns can be regarded as micro-cities if the concept of cities in broad sense is adopted and townization is replaced by urbanization. In this case, the statement in the 16th National Congress of CPC can be altered to "the coordinated development of large, medium, small and micro cities," which eliminates the previous contradictions. Even if cities and towns are interpreted in broad sense, urbanization includes both cities and towns; alternatively, townization includes both towns and cities. So far for the condition of China, strategy of "urbanization" is more scientific and rational than that of townization, because to take urbanization as the strategic option emphasizes the prior development of big cities with no exclusion of the development of medium or small cities and administrative towns. The only difference lies in the fact that the identity change of migrant workers into town residents is at the preliminary stage of urbanization in broad sense, which calls for larger population migrated and integrated in large and medium cities. Particular towns such as Chengguan towns, central towns and key towns can be developed into small or medium cities. In terms of the final realization of urbanization, it is sure that more and more people will gather in large cities, and more and more towns will develop into cities. If the concept of townization is employed, the identities of agriculturally transferred population should alter into both citizens and town residents. Also, there will be an increasing demand for changes of large and small towns, which will inevitably result in the over-establishment of small towns with large agriculturally transferred population remained, as well as the considerable degradation of the quality of urbanization [3].
In addition, urban agglomeration or metropolitan regions instead of town agglomeration or town groups are mentioned in discussion on ways and layouts of urbanization or townization regardless of official contexts or academic fields; farmers and citizens instead of farmers and towners are parallel in discussion on relations between urban and rural residents; citizenization instead of townerization of migrant workers and rural residents is stressed in discussion on the essence of new human-oriented townization.
Lastly, since "urban" involves the meanings of both city and town [4], towns in many countries have smaller population, some of which even lack the administrative systems of towns. "Urbanization" merely indicates the transfer and integration of population to city. China has set up administrative towns, many of which possess relatively similar population with that of small cities in foreign countries. The population in China hence transfers to not only cities, but towns as well, which can be regarded as one of the features of townization with Chinese characteristics. In order to show such differences from foreign countries, "urbanization" is thus named as "townization" in China (Gu, 1991;Jian et al., 2010). Such view needs further discussion. On one hand, though the interpretation of the word "urban" contains the scopes of both city and town in Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, many other authoritative dictionaries merely explain the word as "of city," "urban life" and "urban area [5]." It seems that different interpretations in different English dictionaries cannot be regarded as the basis of interpreting "urbanization" in China as "townization [6]." On the other hand, "urbanization" is interpreted as the process of changes into cities in foreign countries, whereas it is explained as townization in China. There is no 290 CPE 2,2 necessity to interpret the same concept into different words if the two shares the same meaning; or, it is not comparable under Chinese and foreign cultures and even causes misunderstanding and confusion for foreign scholars if urbanization and townization are distinct concepts.
2. The basic status of urbanization in China 2.1 The level and rate of urbanization is relatively low In 1978, the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China set the guideline of focusing on economic modernization. Since then, China has witnessed rapid development of economy and urbanization. Based on official statistics, from 1982 to 2018, the proportion of China's permanent urban population increased from 21.13 to 59.58 percent, with a growth of 38.45 percentage points. At the end of 2018, China's permanent urban population reached 831.37m, which is 3.88 times larger than that of the early stage of reform and opening up.
However, the level of urbanization in China is still relatively low. According to the 2018 statistics published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in 2017, the average UR was 54.8 percent for the whole world, 81.3 percent for high-income countries and 52 percent for middle-income countries [7]. At present, China's UR in terms of permanent population is higher than the world average, but lower than that of the USA (82.1 percent), Germany (77.3 percent), Japan (91.5 percent), Russia (74.3 percent), Brazil (86.3 percent) and South Africa (65.9 percent) [8].
From 1949 to 2018, China's UR increased by an average of only 0.7 percentage points every year, which is undoubtedly a very low figure. Among them, from 1949 to 1978, China's UR only increased from 10.64 to 17.92 percent with an average annual growth of 0.25 percentage points in 30 years. Even if examining the UR in the 36 years from 1982[9] to 2018 when China witnessed both rapid economic growth and improvement of urbanization level, the annual increase is only 1.07 percentage points[10], which is still lower than the UR of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries and regions at similar historical periods of time. From 1940 to 1970 after the Second World War, the UR in Japan increased from 37.7 to 72.1 percent, with an average annual increase of 1.15 percentage points in 30 years [11]. The high-speed economic development of South Korea began in the 1960s. From 1970 to 1985, the UR of South Korea increased from 41.2 to 65.4 percent. That is to say, the urbanization level of South Korea increased by 24.2 percentage points in 15 years, with an average annual increase of 1.61 percentage points [12]. During the period of economic take-off, the urbanization level in Taiwan increased from 50.2 percent in 1960 to 78.3 percent in 1985, increasing by 28.1 percentage points in 25 years, with an average annual increase of 1.12 percentage points [13].
As shown in the above statistics, it is found that compared with developed countries and regions such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, the level of urbanization in China is not high but low, and the speed of urbanization is not fast but slow.

2.2
The UR of registered population is lower that of residential population Registered urban population refers to the urban residents with "non-agricultural registered residence," as opposed to the rural population with "agricultural registered residence." This dual system of household registration is a unique system of population management in China, which aims to control the transfer of rural population to cities and the resulted growth of urban population.
Residential population is a specific concept in statistics and it is used as a statistic index in the international census of urban population. It refers to the total number of people who actually live in a certain area for a certain period of time. The US Census Bureau defines urban populations as "residents living in urban areas." The population registration system of the 291 Real urbanization level in China USA allows citizens to move and migrate freely, but the living conditions of citizens in the place where they move and migrate must meet the requirements of the city's laws on health and so on. For example, they must have certain housing sizes and stable income sources. After the reform and opening up, with the adjustment of the administration system of "withdrawal of rural townships and setting of towns" and "withdrawal of counties and setting of cities (districts) [14]," as well as the separation of residents from households, the statistic method of urban population began to change from measuring the registered to the residential since 1982 so as to accurately and timely reflect the changes in the total number and structure of urban population in China. The third census conducted in 1982 defined urban population as the residential population (including both non-agricultural and agricultural population) living in the jurisdiction of cities and towns, whereas the rest of the population were rural population. The residential population is defined as those with a residing time of six months and above, which means "the population living in urban or rural areas for more than six months (or the population living in the areas for less than six months, but leaving household registration areas for more than six months) are recorded as residential population." After that, the basic definition of urban residential population has not changed.
The dual system of household registration for urban and rural areas in China caused a huge difference between the URs, respectively, based on the statistics of urban registered population and residential population. As shown in Figure 1, from 1982 to 2018, the UR of residential population increased from 21.13 to 59.58 percent, with a growth of 37.45 percentage points. However, the UR of registered population only increased from 17.6 to 43.37 percent, with a growth of 25.77 percentage points only.
Although the URs measured, respectively, by the standards of registered population and residential population show the similar variation trend, there are differences in terms of absolute changes. The UR calculated by the proportion of residential population was significantly higher than that of registered population, with a difference of 16.21 percent in 2018. This means that 226m rural migrant workers and their families without household registration in cities and towns were falsely "urbanized." Although they were regarded as urban population, they did not actually enjoy the welfare in health care, employment, education, social security and housing as urban registered population because of the existence of the dual system of household registration.
The "dual system of household registration" makes the rural migrant population unable to enjoy the same social welfare as the urban population, which brings serious social and economic problems. According to the statistics, there are 36m migrant children, 61m leftbehind children, 50m left-behind women, 50m left-behind elders [15]   travel rush of around 3bn trips that has plagued the government for years. These problems to some extent are due to the fact that these semi-urbanized people cannot adapt themselves to the environment in cities.

2.3
The rate of urbanization is lower than the rate of townization Moreover, due to the one-sided promotion of policies of developing small towns and encouraging farmers to stay close to their hometowns, the urban residential population also includes more than 300m residents living in counties and other administrative towns. It is undoubted that the UR in terms of population living in cities will be much lower than that in terms of population living in both cities and towns.
In 2017, there were 661 cities and 21,116 towns in China. The urban population is different on the basis of different statistic methods, with the UR calculated by the population living in cities far lower than the townization rate calculated by the population living in both cities and towns. The UR calculates the proportion of urban residential population living in 661 cities to the nation-wide population, whereas the townization rate calculates the proportion of urban residential population living in 661 cities together with 340m urban residents living in 20,000 towns nationwide. Deducting 340m urban residents from the total urban population, the UR will be only 34 percent, and excluding the urban population living in non-capital towns, the UR will only reach 45 percent. Consider that more than 200m migrant workers and their families are still in the state of "semi-urbanization" despite being included in the residential urban population, China's real UR will be further lowered.
That is to say, urban population in a broad sense is significantly larger than that in a narrow sense. Specifically, the quality of urban population in a broad sense, due to the lower level of economic and social development in counties and towns than that in cities, is generally below the quality of urban population in a narrow sense. Therefore, regarding urbanization in a broad sense, the dominant strategy of China's economic and social development of urbanization will overestimate the level of urbanization of China against the global situation.
3. The measure of real UR in China [16] Both the statistic method of measuring UR based on the residential population and that based on the registered population cannot accurately reflect the real level of urbanization: on one hand, although some of the transferring agricultural population live and work in cities and are included in the urban residential population, the dual system of household registration caused their household registration remains in the countryside. Therefore, if urban population is limited to the registered population living in urban areas, the urbanization level will to some extent be underestimated. On the other hand, although rural migrant workers and their family members live and work in cities for a long time, they cannot enjoy the same welfare as urban registered population. For this reason, the townization rate calculated by urban residential population overestimates the urbanization level in our country, hence inaccurate measurement and inflated UR. Therefore, the statistical measurement of China's urban population can neither take the registered population approach nor the residential approach in general. These two approaches can only measure some but miss other factors and they go to extremes; thus, they cannot accurately measure the number of urban population. This section intends to find a balanced statistical approach regarding the above two approaches, so as to accurately measure the real level of urbanization in China.

The definition of real urban population
Urban population is neither a population which is artificially designated nor it is a permanent concept. It is a group of people who really enjoy urban welfare with the change of 293 Real urbanization level in China resource allocation. The agglomeration effect of cities leads to continuous population gathering. The essence of urbanization is to share the benefits of urban infrastructure and public services. Therefore, the existence of urban population is inseparable from urban public facilities and services. Urban population is a dynamic concept, which varies constantly with the flow of population.
The definition of urban population depends on the characteristics that distinguish city from countryside. Cities enjoy agglomeration effect. This is because the sharing of high-quality infrastructure and high-level public services in cities brings about the improvement of production efficiency and living standards. Therefore, the analysis of differences between urban and rural population should also be made from this perspective, that is, urban population should be defined and measured based on the quality of life and welfare level. According to Kirkby (1985), "as long as a group of people have a living standard and way of life which is equal to that of residents in cities and towns, they should be included in the urban population." This understanding of urban population not only reflects its practical significance, but also makes our country's statistic method of urban population compatible with the international standard.
In 2012, the State Council's government work report pointed out that "the direction of China's future urbanization is to promote the citizenization of rural migrant workers and gradually extend basic urban public services to cover rural migrant workers." Thus, the distinction between urban and rural population is characterized by urban public services. This paper argues that a group of people, as long as they enjoy urban public infrastructure and services, should be included into the urban population in a certain proportion.
To sum up, this paper defines urban population as "the entire population working in non-agricultural industries and fully enjoying urban public infrastructure and public services, and their families." Because it is based on reality and reflects the actual difference between urban and rural population, the present paper names the urban population under this definition as "real urban population."

The formula for calculating the real urban population
According to the definition of real urban population given in the present paper, urban population should be composed of two groups, as shown in Figure 2. The real urban population includes the registered urban population and the non-registered residential

Rural migrant population
Non-agricultural registered population population who lives in cities but enjoys a lower level of urban public facilities and services than registered urban population. The part of non-registered residential population refers to the population who lives in the city for a long time but with agricultural household registration. The latter is calculated with a specific ratio.
The first group of real urban population is those with urban household registration, or non-agricultural household registration. This part of population has been living in the city for a long time and has enjoyed the relevant public facilities and services in the city.
The second part of real urban population is the rural migrant workers who lived in the city. They move from rural areas to cities in order to improve their quality of life and income. However, due to the fact that public services in China are often tied up to the nature of household registration, the agricultural population does not fully enjoy relevant urban welfare. They can get access to the city's spacious roads, developed public transport, beautiful green squares and advanced cultural environment, but cannot fully enjoy the city's social security, housing security and children's education due to the restrictions of household registration [17]. This group of people cannot be totally included into the real urban population but should be converted into urban population based on the extent to which they enjoy urban public services. This paper calls this calculation method as the conversion method according to the degree of citizenization of rural migrant workers.
The measurement of real UR should be based on the real urban population in the city, that is, the registered population with full citizenship (with coefficient of urbanization degree being 1) plus the non-registered migrant residential population which are converted based on their degree of citizenization and then divided by the city's whole population (including all local registered population and non-registered migrant residential population). The calculation equation is as follows: real urbanization rate ¼ real urban population total population ¼ non À agricultural registered population þ a Â rural migrant population total population ¼ non À agricultural registered population þ a Â residential urban populationÀnon À agricultural registered population ð Þ total population ¼ non À agricultural registered population total population þ a Â residential urban population total population À a Â non À agricultural registered population total population ¼ 1Àa ð ÞÂ non À agricultural registered population total population þ a Â residential urban population total population ¼ 1Àa ð ÞÂurbanization rate of urban registered poplation þ a Â urbanization rate of residential urban population: (1) The key to calculating the real urban population is to determine the accurate coefficient of non-registered urban migrant population calculated as the urban population, that is, the value of "citizenization degree." We set α as the coefficient of citizenization degree, which is determined by the level or degree of urban public facilities and public services enjoyed by residents: In this equation, α F refers to the coefficient of the citizenization degree of public facilities and α S the coefficient of the citizenization degree in accessing public services. Assuming that the 295 Real urbanization level in China weights of the two coefficients are equal, we can obtain the coefficient α of citizenization degree by calculating the arithmetic mean value of the two coefficients.
3.2.1 Public facilities. Public facilities include various kinds of equipment provided by the government so as to serve the urban production and residents' living [18].
Public facilities include the following types [19]: (1) municipal infrastructures including bridges, roads, drainage facilities, lighting facilities and so on; (2) public utilities including urban water, power and gas supply, telecommunications, public transport and so on; (3) landscaping facilities including urban public green space, specified green space, production green space such as parks, scenic areas and so on; (4) environmental sanitation facilities including public toilets, garbage cleaning, rain and snow cleaning facilities; and (5) other public facilities including fire control facilities, traffic signs, etc.
The degree of perfection of public facilities represents the degree of modernization of an area. The sustainable growth of the number and types of public facilities not only promotes the economic benefits of city but also greatly optimizes the living environment of city. The increase of public facilities makes urban life more comfortable and convenient. However, public facilities in rural areas lagged largely behind those in urban areas. For example, sanitary toilets and tap water are not fully popularized, public transportation is still hard, and living environment is poor. The huge gap in quality of life between urban and rural areas drives more and more rural people to move to and live in cities. Both registered and non-registered residential population in cities can get same access to and share the public facilities. Rural population in cities can also enjoy city's broad roads, appreciate flowers in the green land and take public transportation, which is no different from the urban registered population. Therefore, we set α F , the degree of citizenization of public facilities enjoyed by rural migrant population in cities, as 1.
3.2.2 Public service. Public service refers to various kinds of services provided by the government to meet people's basic living requirements.
The standard of coverage of public service is mainly based on the household registration, so the fundamental difference between citizens and farmers lies in different degrees that they can enjoy public service.
There are two different ways of understanding public service. In the broad sense, public service refers to various types of facilities and services provided by the government to meet people's living need. For example, Li Yihua (2008) defined public service as basic public goods and services related to the livelihood of people which includes both physical public facilities and abstract public services such as health, education and so on. In the narrow sense, public service should be limited to the category of service, which only consists of social security, housing and compulsory education and so on. Wang Qian (2008) argued that urban public services are provided "to meet the basic social needs of citizens, and should not be divided by household registration." Urban public services are mainly composed of four categories: "public security, basic education, basic medical care and social security." This paper adopts the narrow concept of public service in order to distinguish it from public facilities and highlights the difference of household registration between urban and rural residents in terms of public service. Public services are mainly provided to meet the basic living requirements of citizens and, therefore, should be defined from the perspective of non-material products, which include five major services in employment, residence, social security, children's education and civil rights.

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CPE 2,2 Therefore, the degree of urbanization of public service for urban non-registered residential population is jointly determined by the above five factors. Assuming that these five public services are of equal importance and are given equal weights, the degree of citizenization in accessing public services can be expressed with the following equation: In this equation, α S1 represents the degree of citizenization of employment for agricultural registered population in city; α S2 represents the degree of citizenization of residence for agricultural registered population in city; α S3 represents the degree of citizenization of social security for agricultural registered population in city; α S4 represents the degree of citizenization of children's education for agricultural registered population in city, α S5 represents the degree of citizenization of civil rights for agricultural registered population in city.
As for the differences of employment, residence, social security, children's education and civil rights between migrant workers and citizens, this paper selects one to two specific statistical indicators from each factor for calculation. Five first-level indicators and nine second-level indicators in the citizenization of public service jointly constitute the measurement of real UR featured by "one standard and multiple dimensions" of ( Table I).
3.3 Measurement of real UR 3.3.1 Degree of citizenization of employment. The increasing gap between urban and rural areas, as well as between workers and peasants leads more and more agricultural population to move and work in cities. Although they get more money after migrating to cities, they still face huge difference in the employment field and the means of labor from the urban registered population. Most rural migrant workers in China are poorly educated and have a low level of training. The types of job for rural migrant workers are mainly restricted to selling labor force with manufacturing being their most important employment industry. Besides, given that the way of employment for most rural migrant workers is irregular, their labor rights and interests cannot be fully guaranteed.
The coefficient of citizenization degree of migrant workers' employment is measured by the degree of the discrimination of employment for household registration. For a long time, there are obvious differences in the access of employment and occupation between agricultural and urban population in some cities in China. As shown in Table II, some large-and medium-sized cities impose clear-cut restrictions on the employment industries of First-level indicator Second-level indicator Degree of citizenization of employment α S1 (1) Degree of the discrimination of employment for household registration α S1.1 Degree of citizenization of residence α S2 (1) Difference in the eligibility for security housing α S2.1 (2) Difference in the expenditure of housing α Degree of citizenization of social security α S3 (1) Difference in the coverage ratio of social security α S3.1 (2) Difference in the minimum living insurance α S3.2 Degree of citizenization of children's education α S4 (1) Difference in the difficulties of admission α S4.1 (2) Difference in the educational expense α S4.2 Degree of citizenization of civil rights α S5 (1) Difference in the right of political participation α S5.1 (2) Difference in the right to vote and the right to be voted α S5. 2   Table I. Determinants of coefficient of degree of citizenization of public service 297 Real urbanization level in China migrant workers, and implement the principle of "urban household holders first" when recruiting workers.
In order to protect the interests of rural migrant workers and maintain equal employment, our country has issued a series of employment policies against discrimination of household registration. In January 2003, the State Council issued "Notice on Better Management and Service to Rural Migrant Workers," stipulating that "discriminatory policies and regulations targeting rural migrant workers should be abolished to protect their interests." In January 2006, the State Council issued "Some Suggestions on Solving the Problems of Rural Migrant Workers," further stressing the principle of applying "fair and non-discrimination policies" in the employment of rural migrant workers.
With the continuous attention paid by our country to the employment of rural migrant workers, the degree of discrimination of household registration in employment is gradually reduced, but it still exists to some extent. The Institute of Constitutionalism in China University of Political Science and Law conducted a survey on the discrimination of employment for household registration in top ten cities in China. The results showed that 28.7 percent of the employers, including state agencies, enterprises and public institutions Employers should strictly adhere to the principle of "town first, countryside second, local city first and non-local second" in the recruitment of non-local workers 1999 Notice on the industries, occupations, education level and vocational skills of non-local workers allowed and restricted by Beijing municipality in 2000 The three types of work in which non-local workers are allowed to engage include garbage collector, corpse carrier, horticulture worker and other physical jobs. Industries that non-local workers are restricted to engaging in include eight industries of finance, insurance, postal service, real estate, advertisement, information consulting service, computer application service and travel agency 2001 Management measures of the recruitment and engagement of workers by entities of Dongguan Employers should adhere to the principle of "local city first and non-local second, Guangdong first and other provinces second" in the recruitment of non-local workers. For posts in which the local labor force can be employed, employers must give priority to the qualified local laborers 2002 Implementing measures on the employment of Shenzhen residents according to a specific proportion Employers of all trades should employ a certain proportion of residents in this city, with the industry of post and telecommunication no less than 60%; the industry of finance no less than 80%; and the industry of warehousing no less than 50%  (Yao, 2007).
To sum up, this paper sets the coefficient of citizenization degree of migrant workers' employment as 60 percent, that is, α S1.1 ¼ 60 percent.
3.3.2 Degree of citizenization of residence. The degree of citizenization of migrant workers' residence is measured by two indicators: the difference in the eligibility for security housing and the difference in the expenditure of housing.
China's security housing mainly serves urban registered population, and most rural migrant workers, limited by the nature of their household registration, cannot enjoy the same housing security policies as urban registered population.
The security housing mainly includes affordable housing: commercial housing with limited price, low-rent housing and public rental housing. Table III shows the differences in the eligibility for security housing between rural migrant workers and urban residents in Beijing.
According Common Property Right." With regard to providing security housing for families without Beijing household registration, this document stipulates that "according to the demand of housing with common property right, people's government of each district should reasonably arrange the land of housing with common property right so as to meet the residence demands of eligible households and key talents. Among them, no less than 30 percent of the housing resources should be allocated to meet the residence demands of families without Beijing household registration who live in the local district." However, this policy of housing with common property right is still in the pilot phase and has not been put into practice nationwide.
In addition to the public rental housing and the newly started pilot housing with common property right, the eligibility for the other three types of security housing in Beijing is premised on the ownership of urban household registration; therefore, most rural migrant population cannot enjoy the benefits of housing security.
Similar to Beijing, the reform of housing security in most cities only covers public rental housing. In May 2013, the Wuhan Municipal Leading Group Meeting on Housing Security Work announced that the eligibility for public rental housing would pioneeringly cancel the restrictions of household registration and even migrant workers could enjoy the same policies as local residents. "Migrant workers who have obtained residence permits and meet the application requirements can also apply for registration with nearby communities or sub-district offices as local residents of Wuhan." However, the application of other types of security housing was only open to the urban registered population.
It can be observed that among above-mentioned four types of security housing, rural migrant workers are only eligible to apply for public rental housing, so we set the eligibility for security housing for rural migrant workers as 25 percent, that is, α S2.1 ¼ 25 percent.
About half of urban residents have already bought commercial housing or acquired security housing (National Population and Family Planning Commission, 2011), but rural migrant workers do not have their own houses in the cities where they work; therefore, their living costs are higher than those of urban residents. We use α S2.2 to represent the difference in the living costs between rural migrant workers and urban registered population. According to the national monitoring and investigation report of rural migrant workers 299

Supply object
Application standard

Affordable housing
The applicants must have household registration in the local city for 3 years and reach the age of 18; applicants of single-person family must reach the age of 30; and the per capita housing area, family income and assets of the applying families must meet the government standards a (1) One family member, annual income equal to or less than RMB 22,700; per capita housing area equal to or less than 10 m 2 ; the net value of household assets equal to or less than RMB 240,000 (2) Two family members, annual income equal to or less than RMB 36,300; per capita housing area equal to or less than 10 m 2 ; the net value of household assets equal to or less than RMB 270,000 (3) Three family members, annual income equal to or less than RMB 45,300; per capita housing area equal to or less than 10 m 2 ; the net value of household assets equal to or less than RMB 360,000 (4) Four family members, annual income equal to or less than RMB 52,900; per capita housing area equal to or less than 10 m 2 ; the net value of household assets equal to or less than RMB 450,000 (5) Five family members and above, annual income equal to or less than RMB 60,000; per capita housing area equal to or less than 10 m 2 ; the net value of household assets equal to or less than RMB 480,000 Commercial housing with limited price The applicant must have a registered permanent residence in the city, and the applicant must be at least 30 years old for a single-person family. The per capita housing area, family income and family assets of the applying families must meet the prescribed standards b (1) Three family members or less, annual income equal to or less than RMB 88,000; per capita housing area equal to or less than 15 m 2 ; the net value of household assets equal to or less than RMB 570,000 (2) Four family members and above, annual income equal to or less than RMB 116,000; per capita housing area equal to or less than 15 m 2 ; the net value of household assets equal to or less than RMB 760,000 Low-rent housing The applicant must have the registered permanent residence and live in the city . The per capita housing area, family income and family assets of the applying family must meet the prescribed standards c (1) The average monthly income of each applying family last year must be less than RMB 580 for a consecutive year. The annual income of one-member family must be less than RMB 6,960, and that of two-member family must be less than RMB 13,920 ( for each additional family member, an increase of RMB 6,960 will be calculated) (2) The total assets of the applying family must less than RMB 150,000 for one-member family, less than RMB 230,000 for two-member family, less than RMB 300,000 for three-member family, less than RMB 380,000 for fourmember family, less than RMB 400,000 for five-member family and above (3) The per capita usable area of the family housing must be less than 7.5 m 2 , and the applicants and their family members have not sold or transferred their properties within five years (4) Having one of the following circumstances: residence being removed; family members suffering from special diseases or serious disabilities; family member(s) at the age 60 or above; houses within the scope of risk removal determined by the municipal government, the number of family members applying for the allocation of low rent shall be more than two (continued ) from 2013 to 2015, we can find the housing expenditure of rural migrant workers from 2012 to 2015, but there is no statistical data of other years. Based on the investigation of data available, it is found that the housing expenditure of rural migrant workers accounts for 15.5 percent of their income [20]. Hence, we estimate the housing expenditure of rural migrant workers in other years according to the proportion of 15.5 percent of the per capita income in those years. Specific data are shown in Table IV.
We define the citizenization degree of residence of rural migrant worker as arithmetic mean of the difference in the eligibility for security housing and the difference in housing expenditure between rural migrant workers and urban registered population. Its equation is as follows: Type Supply object Application standard

Public rental housing
Having the registered permanent residence in Beijing or moving to Beijing from other provinces or cities to work continuously and steadily for a certain number of years, and the family income and housing conditions meet the prescribed standards d (1) Families waiting for low-rent housing, affordable housing, commercial housing with limited price (2) The applicants must have the local household registration and their per capita housing area must be equal to or less than 15 m 2 ; the annual income of the family of three or less than three members must be equal to or less than RMB 100,000, and the annual income of the family of 4 or more than four members must be equal to or less than RMB 130,000 (3) Migrant workers from other provinces or cities must have a stable job in Beijing for a certain number of years, and their family income must meet above standards. They must provide the certificate of temporary residence for the same period, the certificate of payment of housing accumulation fund or certificate of social insurance. Their family members (including themselves) cannot have house in this city Notes: a Measures for the management of affordable housing in Beijing (trial); b measures for the Management of commercial housing with limited price in Beijing (trial); c measures for the management of low-rent housing in Beijing"; d measures for the management of application, examination and allocation of public rental housing in Beijing  Table III. Year

Real urbanization level in China
The citizenization degrees of residence of rural migrant workers from 2008 to 2018 are shown in Table V.
From 2008 to 2018, the citizenization degree of residence of rural migrant workers in China was about 30 percent, but showed a downward trend.
3.3.3 Degree of citizenization of social security. The degree of citizenization of rural migrant workers' social security is measured by two indicators: the difference of coverage rate of social insurance and the difference of minimum subsistence allowance.
The coverage rate of social insurance includes the coverage rate of endowment insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance and maternity insurance. The coverage rates of social insurance of rural migrant workers and urban registered population in China from 2008 to 2018 are shown in Table VI.
We use the ratio between the coverage rates of social security for the rural migrant workers and the urban registered population, that is α S3.1 , to show the average difference between rural migrant workers and urban registered population in terms of the coverage rate of endowment insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance and maternity insurance. The values of the difference between rural migrant workers and urban registered population from 2008 to 2018 are shown in Table VII.
We use the ratio between the minimum subsistence allowances for the rural migrant workers and the urban registered population, that is α S3.2 , to show the difference between rural migrant workers and urban registered population in terms of the minimum subsistence allowance. The values of the difference of minimum subsistence allowance between rural migrant workers and urban registered population from 2008 to 2018 are shown in Table VIII.
We define the degree of citizenization of migrant workers' social security as the arithmetic mean of the difference of coverage rate of social security and the difference of minimum subsistence allowance between rural migrant workers and urban residents, which is expressed by the equation as follows: 3.3.4 Degree of citizenization of children's education. The citizenization degree of children's education of migrant workers is measured by two indicators: the difference of difficulty in school enrollment and the difference of education cost. We use the ratio between the two rates of public school enrollment for children of migrant workers and of urban registered population, that is α S4.1 , to represent the difference of school enrollment difficulty between rural migrant workers and urban registered population.
Some scholars conducted surveys on cities with a large migrant population in China, and the results showed that most of the migrant workers' children are enrolled in public schools (Lei, 2007;Han, 2006;Nanjing Municipal Statistical Bureau, 2008;Tian and Wu, 2010 Table X.
According to the results of the 16 cities mentioned above, the average rate of public school enrollment for rural migrant workers' children in China was 63 percent in 2007.
In recent years, with more attention being paid to the education of rural migrant workers' children, a growing number of children of rural migrant workers were enrolled in public schools. According to the statistics given by Ministry of Education, by the end of 2018, 80 percent of rural migrant workers' children have been enrolled in public schools and 7.5 percent have enjoyed the services of private school bought by government in the stage of compulsory education, all being included in the allowance of public funds per student and the policy of two exemptions and one subsidy. As a result, the sum of these two types of schooling was close to the proportion of public school enrollment in the stage of compulsory education [21].
From 2007 to 2018, the percentage of public school enrollment for migrant workers' children increased from 63 to 87.5 percent [22], with the average annual increase of 2.23 percentage points. Based on this speed of growth, this paper estimates that from 2008 to 2018, the rates of public school enrollment of rural migrant workers' children were 65. 23, 67.46, 69.69, 71.92, 74.15, 76.38, 78.61, 80.84, 83.07, 85.30

Real urbanization level in China
For urban registered population, their children have no difficulty in entering public schools, so we set their public school enrollment rate as 100 percent [23] ; thus, the enrollment rate of migrant workers' children in public schools is equal to α S4.1 ; that is, from 2008 to 2018, the α S4.1 values are 65. 23, 67.46, 69.69, 71.92, 74.15, 76.38, 78.61, 80.84, 83.07, 85.30 and 87.53 percent, respectively. The difference of education cost is represented by α S4.2 . The cost of compulsory education includes the tuition and miscellaneous fees and sponsorship fees (or temporary schooling fees). From the beginning of the Autumn semester of 2008, all tuition and miscellaneous fees for students of compulsory education in cities were exempted nationwide. However, sponsorship fees or temporary schooling fees were set in order to reduce the occupation of local education resources for migrant workers' children entering schools across regions. The cost of sponsorship fees or temporary schooling fees was based on household registration and only targeted non-registered population.
In 2010, the monitoring survey on migrant population conducted by the National Population and Family Planning Commission showed that 25.7 percent of migrant workers' children aged between 6 and 14 years in school need to pay sponsorship fees or temporary schooling fees, with an average payment of RMB 3,835 (Department of Service and Management of Migrant Population of National Population and Family Planning Commission, 2011).
Since the sponsorship fees or temporary schooling fees are levied on the non-registered population, urban registered residents need not to pay these fees. The difference of education cost between the children of migrant workers and children of urban residents is 74.3 percent, that is α S4.2 ¼ 74.3 percent [24].
We define the coefficient of citizenization degree of children's education for migrant workers as the arithmetic mean of the difference of difficulty in school enrollment and education cost between children of migrant workers and children of urban residents. Its equation is as follows: Plugging in relevant data, the citizenization degrees of education for migrant workers' children in China from 2008 to 2018 are shown in Table XI. As can be seen from an increase of about 11.15 percentage points and an average annual increase of 1.1 percentage points. 3.3.5 Degree of citizenization of civil rights. The degree of citizenization of migrant workers' civil rights depends on the difference of the right to political participation and the difference of right to vote and to be voted.
We use α S5.1 to represent the difference of the right to political participation of migrant workers. The number of migrant workers who have awareness of political participation and often participate in politics is small. And their political participation is characterized by narrow scope, monotonous content, and low level and frequency.
It is difficult to calculate the difference of the right to political participation between migrant workers and urban registered population with corresponding data, so the present paper uses the qualitative method to assign values. Assuming that right to political participation of urban citizens is 1 and that of migrant workers is 0.5, the degree of relative difference is α S5.1 ¼ 50 percent.
The right to vote and to be voted is one of the most basic rights of Chinese citizens to participate in state administration. The National People's Congress is the organ of supreme power in China. Therefore, this paper uses the election of NPC deputies by migrant workers and urban citizens to present their right to vote and to be voted and uses α S5.2 to represent the difference in the rights to vote and to be voted between them based on the difference in the proportion of deputies to the people's congresses in urban and rural areas [25].
The number of rural deputies to the National People's Congress and their proportion in the total rural population, and the number of urban deputies to the National People's Congress and their proportion in the total urban population are shown in Table XII [26].
From the 1st to 13th National People's Congress, the difference in the proportion between urban and rural deputies increased from 0.95 to 24.21 percent. Farmers' right to vote and to be voted has been guaranteed continuously, but there is still a huge gap between them and the urban population in this regard. During five years from the 11th National People's Congress held in 2008 to the 12th National People's Congress, the difference in the proportion of deputies to National People's Congress between urban and rural areas increased from 4.49 to 8.65 percent, with an average annual increase of 0.832 percentage. During another five years from the 12th National People's Congress to the 13th National People's Congress, the difference in the proportion of deputies to National People's Congress between urban and rural areas increased from 8.65 to 24.12 percent, with an average annual increase of 3.112 percentage. According to the average growth speed during these two periods, the differences of the right to vote and to be voted between migrant workers and urban citizens in China from 2008 to 2018 were 4. 49, 5.32, 6.15, 6.99, 7.82, 8.65, 11.76, 14.87, 17.99, 21.10 and 24.21 percent, respectively. We define the citizenization degree of migrant workers' civil rights as the arithmetic mean of the difference of right to political participation and the difference of right to vote and to be voted between migrant workers and urban registered population, which can be expressed as: The degrees of citizenization of migrant workers' civil rights from 2008 to 2018 are shown in Table XIII. It can be inferred from

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CPE 2,2 migrant workers' civil rights has been improved rapidly in the past five years, its level is still low. After the calculation of the citizenization degrees of migrant workers in terms of employment, residence, social security, children's education and civil rights, we can estimate the citizenization degree of migrant workers in accessing public services in China. Assuming that the weights of the above five indicators are the same, the arithmetic mean of the above five indicators will indicate the citizenization degree of migrant workers in accessing public services in China from 2008 to 2018, as shown in Table XIV.
It can be seen from Table XIV that from 2008 to 2018, the citizenization degree of migrant workers in accessing public services in China has steadily increased from 45.44 to 52.69 percent, with an increase of 7.25 percentage points. The citizenization degree in public services of slightly over 50 percent indicates that more than half of migrant workers in China can enjoy the social welfare level as urban population in terms of public services.
Next, we calculate the mean of citizenization degree of migrant workers in accessing public facilities and the citizenization degree of migrant workers in accessing public services, as shown in equation:  (1)), we can find that the real UR of China from 2008 to 2018 is between the UR of registered population and that of residing population, as shown in Table XV.
The results of three measuring methods of UR can also be shown in Figure 3. As can be identified from Table XV, during the 10 years from 2008 to 2018, the UR of registered population increased by 10.09 percentage points, the UR of residing population increased by 12.59 percentage points, and the real UR increased by 12.50 percentage points. Compared with the other two officially announced URs, the growth of real UR is slightly lower than that of UR of residing population but substantially higher than that of registered population, which helps to correct the overestimated result of the UR of residing population Coefficient of citizenization degree of migrant workers in accessing public services

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Real urbanization level in China and the underestimated result of the UR of registered population in terms of absolute value and can more accurately measure the urbanization status quo and its trend in China.
From 2008 to 2018, the coefficient of degree of citizenization in China increased from 72.72 to 76.34 percent, with an average annual increase of 0.36 percentage points. The continuous increase of degree of citizenization of rural migrant workers indicates that the living quality and welfare of rural migrant workers in China are getting closer to that of urban registered population, which lifts the real urbanization level. The measurement of real UR does more than the simple statistical calculation of residing or registered population, and it also takes into consideration the real situation of population, therefore it is a more scientific method to measure urbanization level.

International comparison of UR
The level of urbanization is closely related to the level of economic development. According to the classic s-type urbanization model, in the early stage of economic development, UR grows slowly with the increase of per capita income, followed by a period of rapid growth. When per capita income reaches a high level, the growth speed of urbanization will slow down again.
Todaro and Smith (2009) point out that "the positive relationship between UR and per capita income is one of the most obvious and significant characteristics in the process of development." Typically, countries with high per capita incomes are among the highest urbanized countries in the world.

Real urbanization level in China
Assume that the urbanization level of a country or region is UR and its GDP per capita is GDPP, and then: The regression analysis of UR and per capita GDP is conducted in 2005, 2010 and 2015 separately, and the results are shown in Table XVII. As can be seen from Table XVII, the regression equation of the said three years can be verified effectively, which shows that the level of urbanization is connected with the level of economic development to some extent. With the rising of the economic level, the urbanization level also rises. Besides, the elasticity between urbanization level and economic development level gradually decrease as years go by indicating that when the economy reaches a certain scale, the urbanization level will slow down.
By plugging China's per capita GDP in the corresponding year into the regression results in Table XVII, China's UR that corresponds to the world regular pattern can be obtained (Table XVIII).
The UR of China calculated on the basis of world data is consistent with the regular pattern of world development. This paper names it the world standard value, which can be used as a reference for the standard level of China's urbanization.
It can be seen from Table XIX that the UR of China is lower than the world standard value, no matter how it is measured. Therefore, it can be concluded that China's urbanization level lags behind the level of economic development, and the level and speed of urbanization still need to be greatly improved. 3.5 Further revision of the real UR In China, there are significant differences between cities and towns in the level of economic development and the degree of modernization. Generally speaking, towns are sparsely populated, with old public facilities and lower public service levels than urban areas. Sun Rui and Yuan Lingling (2013) point out that even in developed towns in China, there are still problems such as weak service concept, monotonous service content and low service quality, hence a large gap from cities. Therefore, compared with the city population, the townsmen enjoys a lower level of infrastructure and public services, and they should also be converted into "citizenization degree" in a certain proportion. The previous measurement of real UR calculates the UR in a broad sense, which includes both city population and township population. If we look at the narrow sense of UR which only includes the city population and excludes the township population, the final UR will decline further. Below, we will incorporate the differences of public facilities and services between cities and towns into the measurement of UR and make further revisions to the real UR.
Considering the unavailability of data in non-census years, this paper assumes that the degree of citizenization of temporary residents in cities is α, the degree of citizenization of registered population in towns β, and the degree of citizenization of temporary residents in towns g. The equation of calculation of real UR will be further revised as follows: