(Yicai) May 27 -- China has released a new policy aimed at providing better public services, such as education, housing, social security, medical care, and employment, to the 250 million residents who have been living in urban areas for a long time but do not have household registration there.

Promoting equal access to public services for permanent residents with or without household registration is an urgent step in advancing the urbanization of the migrant population, Zheng Bei, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference yesterday.

Cities with a large influx of school-age population should tap into existing enrollment resources and enhance the proportion of migrant children attending public schools from the current 97 percent, according to the policy. In areas where public school enrollment cannot be guaranteed, local governments should fulfill their responsibility to purchase school placements.

Migrant children will gradually be included in the scope of public services for preschool and high school, and related policies will be implemented to allow them to participate in entrance examinations in their permanent residence locations.

Various regions will be required to establish neighborhood-level employment service stations and a gig market to create a “15-minute employment service cycle,” said Zhang Lixin, director of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security’s planning and finance department.

Localities are encouraged to widely organize specialized on-site job fairs categorized by industry, position, and demographic groups, Zhang noted, adding that activities such as live-streamed job recruitment and remote interviews will be conducted to facilitate the matching between job seekers and available positions.

For flexible workers, including food delivery riders, the MOHRSS plans to expand the occupational injury protection pilot program to all provincial-level regions this year. The program will comprehensively include ride-hailing, instant delivery, and intra-city freight platforms. As of March 31, the pilot had covered 27.4 million workers.

The new policy also expands the coverage of public rental housing, improves the system for employees to participate in the social insurance, and facilitates the convenience of cross-regional medical expense settlement.

At the implementation level, the policy clearly distinguishes between three types of regions: those with population inflow, those with stable overall population, and those with population outflow. It proposes different requirements and policies for each category.

Editor: Futura Costaglione