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Sun Yuchun spends two hours commuting to work on packed buses and goes through the same ordeal on her way home every day.
She lives in a 7-square-meter room in a suburb in Beijing and shares a toilet with four other tenants.
"Life is tough here, but I have no other choice because current housing policies do not allow people like me to buy property in Beijing," said Sun, 23.
According to the municipal authorities, residents who are not registered in Beijing under the hukou, or household registration system, cannot own a car or property in the city unless they can provide proof of social security and income tax payments for five consecutive years.
There are similar restrictions for other services and benefits including low-income housing, schooling and pensions.
The college-educated Sun, whose hukou is in Henan province, works as a Web designer in a private company in Zhongguancun, earning about 4,000 yuan ($650) a month. Her rent is 750 yuan a month.
"The hukou system is making fresh graduates like me second-class residents in the capital," Sun said. She continues to stay in the capital because it offers more job opportunities.
Those like Sun who struggle in big cities are known as "new migrants", according to a report released by the China Social Sciences Press last year. It estimated that China has about 150 million new migrants.
Lian Si, the lead author of the report and a sociology professor at the University of International Business and Economics, said the new migrants will become an increasingly important part of the country's economic growth and urbanization in which many Chinese citizens will fulfill their "Chinese dream".
