It now to some extent stands in the way of the country's urbanization, which is essential to China's modernization.
According to a 2007 poll by China's leading news portal Sina.com and China Youth Daily, 92 percent of the 11,168 respondents said the system was in need of reform.
More than 53 percent said restrictive policies attached to the system, such as limits on access to education, healthcare, employment and social insurance should be eliminated. More than 38 percent called for the system to be scrapped entirely.
Experts, however, warned against scrapping the system entirely for fear of causing social unrest, saying the government should gradually change the current system to a unified household registration system.
Wu declined to give a specific timetable for a breakthrough in the reform. "The rural-urban division cannot be expected to be eliminated at one stroke, and that's where the difficulty of the registration system reform lies."
