China plans to expand the coverage of basic public services — including education, housing, social security and medical care — to migrant workers and other residents without local household registration in the cities where they live and work, in a move aimed at meeting public demand and advancing urbanization.

The State Council released a guideline on Friday, pledging equal access to basic public services for all permanent residents, rather than limiting eligibility to those with local household registration, which is usually tied to place of birth.

The initiative comes as China now has 250 million people living in urban areas without obtaining local household registration, including 170 million rural migrant workers and their family members, said Zheng Bei, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a news conference on Tuesday.

"Allowing them to access basic services in the cities where they have a stable job and life is an important part of efforts to support the country's people-centered new type of urbanization," she said.

As the nation's urbanization has shifted from a stage of rapid expansion to steady development, the move also responds to "the most immediate, direct and realistic demands" of a vast population, she added.

So far, about three-fourths of basic public services are available to people without local household registration but holding residence permits, and 97 percent of children of migrant workers are enrolled in public schools or government-subsidized private schools during the nine-year compulsory education period.

In line with the new guideline, migrant children moving to cities with their parents will have improved access to public schools and opportunities to take school entrance examinations in their places of residence.

More cities will expand public rental housing programs to cover unregistered families, while flexible workers will be supported to enroll in the housing provident fund system — a mandated savings program for urban employees used to finance mortgages at relatively lower interest rates from banks.

The document also calls for removing household registration restrictions on participation in employee social security insurance and improving insurance coverage for migrant workers, flexible workers and those engaged in new forms of employment.

In healthcare, local governments are required to strengthen basic medical coverage for permanent residents and streamline cross-regional direct settlement of medical bills. Stronger employment services will also be provided, including support for unregistered self-employed individuals when they start businesses.

Other basic public services, such as childcare, elderly care, social assistance and disability support, will be gradually opened to nonregistered permanent residents, it added.

Xu Liang, an official at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said the ministry will establish eligibility criteria for unregistered families applying for housing support and define requirements for length of employment, residence, as well as housing and income hardship standards.

"Eligible families will be added to a waiting list for public rental housing, and they will be supported through measures such as allocation of rental housing and rental subsidies," he said.

You Sen, an official at the Ministry of Education, said authorities in areas with population inflows will strengthen the analysis of trends in resident populations and adjust the layout of primary and secondary schools accordingly, so as to increase the proportion of migrant children enrolled in public schools and reduce the financial burden on their families.

wangxiaoyu@chinadaily.com.cn