system has origins in China that date back to ancient times, but the system in its current form came into being with the 1958 People's Republic of China Hukou Registration Regulation. Until very recently, each citizen was classified in an agricultural or non-agricultural hukou (commonly referred to as rural or urban) and further categorized by location of origin. This two-fold organization structure was linked to social policy, and those residents who held non-agricultural (i.e. urban) hukou status received benefits not available to their rural counterparts. Internal migration was also tightly controlled by the central government, and only in the past few decades have these restrictions been loosened. While this system has played a major role in China's fast economic growth, hukou has also promoted and aggravated social stratification and contributed significantly to the deprivation of many of China's rural workers. In recent years, steps have been taken to alleviate the inequalities promulgated by the hukou system, with the most recent major reforms announced in March and July 2014, which included a provision that eliminated the division between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou status. Rationale and function In its original legislation, the hukou system was justified as created to“...maintain social order, protect the rights and interests of citizens and to be of service to the establishment of socialism". The central government asserted that because rural areas had greater capacity to absorb and use excess labor, the majority of the population should be concentrated in these regions. Furthermore, free movement of people was considered dangerous, as it would lead to overpopulation of cities and could threaten agricultural production. Under the hukou system, the rural population was structured to serve as support for urban industrialization, both in agricultural production and workers for state owned businesses. In reality, the hukou system served other motives as well. After establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party enacted policies based on the notions of stability and rapid modernization, and the hukou system was no exception. Urban areas have historically been where authoritarian regimes are most vulnerable: to combat this, the central government gave preferential treatment to city residents, hoping to prevent uprisings against the state, particularly in the early years when it was especially susceptible to rebellion. The structure of the hukou system also bolstered the power of the central government over its urban citizens: by making city residents dependent upon the government