establishment of the nation impeded the central government's plan for society and the economy. Although the hukou system in its current form was not officially brought into being until 1958, the years preceding its establishment were characterized by growing efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to assert control over its populace. In 1950, the Minister of Public Security, Luo Ruiqing, published a statement detailing his vision for the implementation of the hukou system in the new era. By 1954, rural and urban citizens had been registered with the state, and rigorous regulations on the conversion of hukou status had already been implemented. These required that applicants have paperwork that documented employment, acceptance to a university, or immediate family relations in the city to be eligible. In March of the same year, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Labor issued the Joint Directive to Control Blind Influx of Peasants into Cities, which proclaimed that henceforth, all employment of rural workers in city firms would be controlled entirely by local labor bureaus. On 9 January 1958, the People's Republic of China Hukou Registration Regulation was signed into law. This divided the populace into nongmin (rural citizen), with an agricultural hukou, and shimin (urban citizen), with a non-agricultural hukou, and grouped all citizens by locality. The key difference, however, lay in the distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou status. Because the central government prioritized industrialization, state welfare programs, which were tied to hukou status, heavily favored urban residents; holders of agricultural hukous were unable to access these benefits and were saddled with inferior welfare policies. Furthermore, transfer of hukou status was highly restricted, with official quotas at 0.15-0.2% per year and actual conversion rates at about 1.5%. In the following years, government oversight over the movement of people was expanded. In 1964, greater limits were imposed on migration to big cities, particularly major ones like Beijing and Shanghai, and in 1977 these regulations were furthered. Throughout this era, the hukou system was used as an instrument of the command economy, helping the central government implement its plan for industrializing the nation. 1978-Present: Post-Mao From the establishment of the People's Republic of China until Chairman Mao's death in 1976, the central government tightened its control over migration, and by 1978, intranational movement was controlled entirely by the government. Because living "outside the system" was virtually impossible, nearly all movement of people