With the deepening of market-oriented reform in China, the household registration (hukou) system, which has successfully survived and adapted to rapid socioeconomic changes, is receiving increasing attention among scholars and policymakers. In his new book, Jason Young seeks to explore the relationships among markets, migrants and institutional arrangements within the hukou system, using theoretical analysis and case studies. Young argues that “migrants, enabled by the growth of the market economy, are a force for institutional change in China” (p. 21). The book employs new institutionalism as a theoretical framework to discuss how and why China's hukou system, which as a system of population management has experienced important changes to its formal institutional arrangements, has retained its overall continuity and plays a crucial role in shaping migration and settlement patterns. The four cases presented in this book provide valuable examples of how the hukou system has changed at both the national and local levels.

This book is divided into five chapters, bookended by an introduction that concisely outlines the book's aims – namely, to explore the practical functioning of China's hukou system, its adaption to the changing institutional environment and the complexity of the hukou reform – and a conclusion that restates the main findings and emphasizes “the significance of locating institutional change within the broader socioeconomic environment” (p. 7). The first chapter presents an overview of three politico-economic reforms – in agriculture, the state sector and regional planning – which, as Young believes, provide the impetus for internal migration from rural to urban areas and significantly impact on the functioning of China's hukou system. The chapter also explores the relationships among markets, migrants and institutional change. Chapter two provides a clear historical outline of the evolving hukou system in China. After examining different characteristics of the hukou system in China's pre-modern, Republican and Communist eras, the author finds an astonishing continuity and stability in the hukou system and concludes that it continues to serve as a determinant of life opportunity in the reform era. Taking into consideration the long history of the hukou system, Young emphasizes the impact of path dependency and institutional inertia on the legitimacy of the current system, arguing that “an absence of a hukou system in China, whilst normal to the outside observer, would be a highly abnormal state of affairs for China” (p. 29). Comparing the consequences of hindering industrialization by constraining migration to the cities in premodern China with out-migration to the colonies in Europe, Young concludes that the hukou system played a significant role in slowing industrialization in premodern China. With the shift from a centralized planned economy to a decentralized market-orientated economy in 1978, China's hukou system experienced major institutional changes: it adapted to the new institutional environment while it maintained its core functions. This balance between adaptation and stability provides compelling evidence of the continuity of the hukou system. In reviewing some comments that attribute the increase in crime in urban areas to non-hukou migrants from rural areas, Young develops a convincing argument that such comments ignored “the sharp rise in economic disparity and the positive contributions these migrants make to urban development” (p. 57).

Chapters three and four are based on case studies at the national and municipal level and explore in detail institutional changes in the hukou system in contemporary China. Young provides a lucid analysis of the hukou system, arguing that throughout the reform era it has experienced change under the guidance of three interrelated fundamental state objectives: promoting economic development, maintaining social stability and managing migration and urbanization. In this chapter, the author describes how the hukou system has adapted to the rapidly developing market economy and changing society since 1978. The central authorities have modernized the hukou institution by nationalizing, standardizing and increasingly digitalizing the hukou records of Chinese citizens. Young believes that these efforts provide the state with extraordinary powers and help to use the hukou system to achieve its key objectives while adapting to the changing environment, thus ushering in a new era of hukou management.

While pointing out the issue of major development divides, including rural-urban disparity and east-west disparity, Young confirms “China's large contribution to global poverty alleviation and economic growth” (p. 86). Despite continuous adjustments to the hukou system, its implementation during the reform era has still resulted in an increasing “discrepancy between the level of urbanisation and the number of people with urban or non-agricultural hukou” (p. 96) or between urban residents and urban hukou residents; by 2009, the urbanization level was 47 per cent, but only 34 per cent had a permanent non-agricultural hukou, leaving 13 per cent of the urban population without an urban or non-agricultural hukou. In Chapter four, through three case studies at the local government level in contemporary China, Young presents the ways that the hukou system has changed under varying regional socioeconomic environments in Beijing, Shenzhen and Chongqing as municipal authorities have used it to promote local development and achieve other government objectives. As one of China's economic centres and a capital city attractive to migrants, Beijing presents an example of consistently maintaining strict control of hukou transfer into the city and using the system to pick the best qualified migrants for the purpose of local development. The case of Shenzhen, “City of the Migrant Bird” (p. 127), with a relatively small hukou population and a large non-hukou population, shows how local governments take efforts to liberalize the hukou transfer system to attract the needed labour force for the development of the city. Chongqing, a rapidly developing municipality and China's “gateway to the west” (p. 105), provides another example of addressing the gap between the rate of hukou urbanization and that of urbanization by means of increasing rural to urban hukou transfers in a migrant sending region.

Chapter five revisits the hukou system in contemporary China, discusses its contradictory mix of institutional continuity and change and summarizes the theoretical mode of institutional changes in the hukou system since 1978. Young focuses on the gap between the formal rules and their practical enforcement, which is believed to be crucial to an understanding of how policymakers adapt “the hukou system to the new socioeconomic conditions by changing the means of meeting hukou objectives but not by changing the objectives themselves” (p. 173). Supported by his appreciable historical analysis and empirical observation, Young notes convincingly that “it is unlikely the hukou system will be abolished or radically reformed in the near future” (p. 178) because of the complexity of the reform and the critical role the hukou system plays in Chinese governance; at the same time, Young points out the ongoing changes in the system's processes.

One impressive contribution of the book is its comprehensive insight into institutional changes in China's hukou system: particularly why the system has experienced significant change, how it has changed and why the system still matters. Young addresses these issues by combining his in-depth knowledge of the institution with dynamic case studies, as well as quantitative analysis of urbanization, population and residence data.

However, much of the empirical data presented in the book, especially in Chapters three and four, provides urbanization, migration and hukou information only up to 2007. Although some data presented are from 2010 or 2011, the book was published in 2013. The less-than-current data weaken some of the book's arguments, given the rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions. For example, the author uses data from 2004 to 2007 to argue that “all children must return to their permanent hukou location to sit national university entrance examinations” (p. 50). However, Yuan Guiren, minister of education, declared in 2011 that the Ministry of Education was working with local authorities in Beijing and Shanghai to design a college matriculation policy for migrant children, while in early 2012, the Ministry of Education required Chinese cities to formulate plans concerning university entrance examinations for migrant workers' children. According to Xinhua news, by early January 2013, 21 Chinese provinces and municipalities had announced education reforms that would allow the children of migrant workers to enter senior high schools and sit university entrance examinations locally.

To sum up, Young's book presents a clear picture of the interactions among market development, migration and institutional changes in the hukou system in contemporary China, and provides valuable implications in the pursuit of further exploration of this theme. It is an important piece of scholarship that is worth reading for academic researchers interested in Chinese studies, especially specific aspects of the hukou system, migration and institutional reform in contemporary China.