Yihan Machado
Course: Diversity in the U.S., SOC 215
Professor: Dr. Roxanna Harlow
Assignment Title: Social Inequality Under China’s Hukou System
Assignment Details
My project examines social inequality under China’s hukou system, a household registration policy that classifies citizens as either rural or urban at birth. I explored how this administrative system shapes access to education, healthcare, housing, employment, and social services. The central question guiding my project was: How can a state policy that appears to be simple registration paperwork produce long-term structural inequality?
To answer this question, I analyzed academic research, policy discussions, and documentary evidence. I incorporated scholarly articles on urban villages and migration, reports from organizations such as the World Bank and UNICEF, and examples from the BBC documentary China on Four Wheels. I also included a brief comparison to the United States to highlight how different policy structures shape inequality in different ways.
Rather than presenting the information in a traditional paper format, I created a scripted video project. The video combined narration, visual imagery, infographics, and film clips to explain how hukou contributes to stratification and intergenerational inequality. By blending research with storytelling, I aimed to make complex sociological concepts accessible while still maintaining academic depth.
Application
This project connects to my personal life because the hukou system is something my biological parents experienced directly. Studying it academically helped me better understand the structural forces that shaped their opportunities, mobility, and daily lives. Rather than seeing their experiences as individual struggles, I now recognize them as part of a broader system of state policy, stratification, and institutional inequality. This perspective made the topic both personally meaningful and intellectually significant.
The project also connects to my long-term goals. By presenting the assignment in a video format, I was able to practice scripting, research integration, visual design, and editing. Transforming academic research into an engaging and accessible narrative required careful organization, clarity, and awareness of my audience. These skills directly support my goal of building an online presence that helps people laugh, learn, and connect, especially through YouTube. Overall, this assignment strengthened both my sociological understanding and my ability to communicate complex ideas through meaningful storytelling.
Results/Conclusions
Through this project, I learned that inequality is not shaped only by income or individual effort, but also by formal administrative systems that structure opportunity. The hukou system may appear to be simple registration paperwork, yet it operates as a powerful legal framework that determines access to education, healthcare, housing, and employment. This helped me understand how state policy can directly influence life chances in lasting ways.
The conclusion I reached is that hukou reproduces inequality across generations by tying full social benefits to birthplace. Migrant workers can participate in urban economies and contribute to growth, but without local hukou status, they often lack equal access to public services and long-term security. Although migrant communities develop informal strategies to adapt, those efforts exist within structural limits that are difficult to overcome. Overall, this project showed me how deeply institutional rules can shape opportunity and maintain inequality over time.
Challenges and Successes
One of the biggest challenges I faced was balancing academic rigor with an engaging video format. Since I chose to present the project as a scripted video instead of a traditional paper, I had to explain complex sociological concepts clearly without oversimplifying them.
As for the challenge I am most proud of overcoming, it was combining research, visuals, and narration into one cohesive final product. Bringing everything together pushed me to think critically about both content and presentation.
It reminded me that growth often comes from stepping outside our comfort zones, and that each challenge we overcome shapes us in ways that extend beyond a single assignment.