[Nokinside]

>they need some kind of permit to change jobs and sometimes they are actually forced to work somewhere.

Your information is outdated. China is changing rapidly. Things that were true 20 years ago are not true anymore.

It used to be that people had to be part of a work unit. In return people received free housing and were assigned a job. This is not true anymore. People can move around the country relatively freely, they can pick their job and buy their house. On the other hand they may have to live in the street and or go on without a job.

Big companies like Foxconn provide housing etc. and may try to control their workers, but people can quit and leave. They even have strikes. Chinese workers still don't have right to organize, but sometimes collective bargaining is allowed at factory level.

Chinese government still restricts workforce moment into some areas to prevent formation of slums in the cities.

[aaron-lebo]

What about hukou?

In November 2005, Jiang Wenran, acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, said that the hukou system was one of the most strictly enforced apartheid structures in modern world history.[56] He stated, 'Urban dwellers enjoy a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while peasants, the majority of the Chinese population, are treated as second-class citizens.'[56]

Kam Wing Chan (陳金永 Chén Jīnyǒng) and Buckingham's (2008) article, "Is China Abolishing the Hukou System?"[30] argues that previous reforms have not fundamentally changed the hukou system, but have only decentralized the powers of hukou to local governments. They conclude that the hukou system remains active and continues to contribute to China's rural and urban disparity.[31]

In March 2008, over 30 leading intellectuals wrote an open letter to the Government, asking for the "immediate abolition of the rural-urban dual hukou system." In 2008-09, web posted essays remarked the Hukou system as a "caste system" of China, and "China a great country of discrimination."[32] The system is currently only partially enforced, and it has been argued that the system will have to be further relaxed in order to increase availability of skilled workers to industries.[33]

I understand that there has been some reform, but it still exists.

[Nokinside]

Hukou style register is common in Asia. Japan and Taiwan have it too.

Like I said, Chinese government still want's to prevent uncontrolled rural-urban population transfers and formation of slums. Undocumented immigrants in United States are analogous problem (citizens versus immigrants).

But the system has been radically changed. If person can show that they have work or house after six months they can stay and get their children in school etc.