拿北京户口一年后离职赔31万，值吗？Beijing hukou for 310,000 yuan, a good deal?

Every year, 240,000 students graduate from colleges and universities in Beijing alone. Yet only fewer than 10,000 of them can obtain a local residence registration, or hukou.

Liang was one of the lucky ones. Having graduated in August 2015, he got a job as a physics teacher in a local middle school in Tongzhou district, which helped him obtain a local hukou. As a prerequisite, he signed a 10-year contract with the organization.

Yet he quit the job one year later, reportedly for a position with much higher salary. This time he ran out of his luck — The school took him to court for breach of contract, which ruled on Wednesday that Liang must pay the school 310,000 yuan ($44,670) in compensation.

By Thursday night, the topic had already been viewed 30 million times on Sina weibo with over 2,000 comments. 

Some of the comments blamed Liang for breaking his contract. "It is so hard to get a local hukou. The school helped him make it and Liang should at least honor his contract," one comment said.

"Liang lost not only the money, but also his own credit," said another comment. "It might be hard for him to gain the trust of other organizations."

But surprisingly, the hottest comment said Liang had got "a good deal".

"That equals Liang buying a Beijing hukou for 310,000 yuan. Isn't that a good price?" said the comment, which received over 3,800 "like"s.

Some of the comments listed the advantages of having a Beijing hukou: One can buy an apartment in the capital, apply for a vehicle plate to drive a car on the capital's roads, and enjoy the capital's welfare and public services that are quite a bit better than the national average.

Another poster even calculated: For the coming nine years, Liang only needs to earn 34,444 yuan more than his past salary each year, or 2,870 yuan a month to cover the compensation, 

The mission is not hard to accomplish.

By the end of 2017, only about 13.6 million of the 21.7 million permanent residents in Beijing had a local hukou. For long, obtaining a hukou in Beijing has been illusory for many people who work in the capital; One either competes among 240,000 for the quota, or else marries someone with a local hukou and then waits for a decade or two.

For that reason, having a local hukou is even considered one major advantage in the blind dating market. In some previous interviews, some blind daters even said they accept their future spouse to be with higher ages, lower income, and not-so-good manners and faces, as long as he or she has a hukou. 

Shen Chi, vice-director of the China Center for Urban Development, a research institution affiliated to the National Development and Reform Commission, faces similar problem from the employer's point of view. "Too many organizations cannot attract top talents even if they promise high salaries, because they cannot help them get hukou," he said, "Even my own organization faces this problem."

He called on the authorities to loosen its hukou policy to boost the flow of talents into Beijing.

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