China is to tie education spending to children’s place of residence for the first time, in a bid to end a system detrimental¹ to migrants that threatens to leave the country with an ill-educated urban underclass.

中国将首次把教育经费跟儿童的居住地相挂钩，这是为了终结不利于流动人口的现有制度。现有制度可能导致中国城市出现一个教育不足的社会底层阶级。

The reform, announced this month, comes after the official migrant population fell for the first time since the early 1980s, when the switch to a market economy drew peasants from the poor countryside to seek jobs in the cities.

中国政府本月宣布这项改革措施之前，官方数据显示，自1980年代初以来流动人口数量第一次下降。当时，中国正向市场经济过渡，吸引了贫穷农村的农民前往城市寻找工作。

Allocation of central government education grants to where children reside, rather than where they are registered, will help cities meet growing social costs — although critics say the reform is not enough to bridge the spending gap in the biggest and most attractive cities, where millions of migrant children struggle to acheive a basic education.

依据儿童的居住地（而非户籍所在地）分配中央政府教育补助金，将帮助城市承担日益升高的社会成本，不过批评人士表示，这项改革不足以弥补最大、最具吸引力城市的开支缺口。在这类城市里，有数百万流动人口的子女无法得到基础教育。

The reform also mandates² local budgets assume responsibility for registered migrants, potentially providing a further incentive³ for cities to limit migration⁴.

这些改革也要求地方预算对已登记流动人口承担责任，可能导致各个城市产生限制流动人口进入的更大动力。

“The real question is whether the big cities are willing to open up,” said Tang Jun, a researcher at the Social Policy Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noting that spending per child is higher in bigger, more attractive cities.

“真正的问题在于，大城市是否愿意开放，”中国社会科学院社会政策研究中心研究员唐钧表示。他指出，儿童人均教育支出越大，城市的吸引力也越大。

China’s richest cities are already trying to keep migrants out. Beijing slashed⁵ the number of new migrants into the city by half last year and reduced the migrant population in the city centre by forcing children out of primary school and tearing down markets and small shops. In Shanghai the migrant population shrank last year for the first time.

中国最富裕城市已开始限制流动人口流入。去年，北京把新增流动人口数量减少了一半，通过以户籍门槛限制儿童上小学和关闭市场与小商店的方法，减少了城市中心区的流动人口。在上海，去年流动人口数量首次开始减少。

“Big cities have raised the threshold for migrants and they are cleaning them out,” said Hu Xingdou, who researches migrant issues at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “The purpose is to reduce the number of migrants.”

“大城市已提高了流动人口的进入门槛，正在把他们清理出去，”北京科技大学(Beijing Institute of Technology)研究流动人口问题的胡星斗说。“目的是减少流动人口数量。”