Major Events
By the year 1960, Mao Zedong, the Communist leader of the People's Republic of China, was in the midst of the implementation of his second leadership campaign, which he called the Great Leap Forward. His motto for this plan was "hard work for a few years and happiness for a thousand," specifically in the industrial and agricultural divisions (Craig, 2005, p. 164). This essentially entailed grouping people together to live in communes of roughly 30,000 people and using backyard iron smelters to increase iron production for the industrial factories. The ultimate goal was to force all Chinese people to relentlessly work in these fields to advance one hundred years forward in agricultural and industrial progress. The results were, in fact, the complete opposite. Agriculture was depleted due to increased flooding. The industrial plans were also a failure, as the backyard homemade iron proved to be unsustainable. This disastrous campaign resulted in widespread starvation and poverty, which continued into the mid-1960s (Biography.com Editors, 2011).
After many thousands of deaths, Mao Zedong was able to enact a new plan in 1966 focusing on children, as most of the young Chinese citizens were not as aware of Mao's previous disasters as their parents' generation. Mao shut down many schools and relocated urban children to rural areas, in order to educate them about rural work. More importantly, these children were sent with "little red books," which contained opinions and quotations from Mao. The older generations were, in turn, educated about the importance of promoting Communism and preventing Capitalist views from arising (Craig, 2005, p. 164).
In the early '70s, Mao focused on pushing China forward to become a more powerful nation, as the worldwide significance of globalization was on the rise. He famously met with Richard Nixon in 1972 in an attempt to reestablish peace between China and the United States. All of this emphasis on growth and expansion additionally resulted in the growth of the average family size.
Because a massive population was not sustainable given the resources available, however, Mao designed a campaign called "Later-Longer-Fewer" in 1972. This encouraged parents to have children later with longer periods of time between children and to have fewer children alltogether (Craig, 2005, p. 166). In 1976, Mao Zedong died, which began the Post-Mao Era. This involved heavy, economic and political reform in an attempt to repair some of the great damage done under Mao's leadership. Most importantly, the Chinese government made strides away from the centrally-planned, Communist economic system and toward a more market-based system by gradually giving more control to businesses in certain sectors (Brodsgaard, n.d.).
After many thousands of deaths, Mao Zedong was able to enact a new plan in 1966 focusing on children, as most of the young Chinese citizens were not as aware of Mao's previous disasters as their parents' generation. Mao shut down many schools and relocated urban children to rural areas, in order to educate them about rural work. More importantly, these children were sent with "little red books," which contained opinions and quotations from Mao. The older generations were, in turn, educated about the importance of promoting Communism and preventing Capitalist views from arising (Craig, 2005, p. 164).
In the early '70s, Mao focused on pushing China forward to become a more powerful nation, as the worldwide significance of globalization was on the rise. He famously met with Richard Nixon in 1972 in an attempt to reestablish peace between China and the United States. All of this emphasis on growth and expansion additionally resulted in the growth of the average family size.
Because a massive population was not sustainable given the resources available, however, Mao designed a campaign called "Later-Longer-Fewer" in 1972. This encouraged parents to have children later with longer periods of time between children and to have fewer children alltogether (Craig, 2005, p. 166). In 1976, Mao Zedong died, which began the Post-Mao Era. This involved heavy, economic and political reform in an attempt to repair some of the great damage done under Mao's leadership. Most importantly, the Chinese government made strides away from the centrally-planned, Communist economic system and toward a more market-based system by gradually giving more control to businesses in certain sectors (Brodsgaard, n.d.).
Mao Zedong and the Great Leap Forward:
Demographic Changes
All sectors of the Chinese population took significant losses as a result of the Great Leap Forward. This period is the only time in the past 60 years in which China has exhibited an overall negative population growth rate. In the year 1961, the population growth percentage was -1% (World Bank, n.d.). This year indicates the most severe famine due to lack of resources and poor agricultural methods. Population growth became positive again, following the failure of the Great Leap Forward. Growth increased steadily in the late '60s and early '70s during which Mao encouraged the exploitation of children to carry out his propaganda campaigns and learn about rural work. As China's population neared one billion, Mao implemented the "Later-Longer-Fewer" campaign (described above) to curb population growth. As a direct result of this, the mid-to-late '70s showed a rapid decline from 2.8% to 1.2% population growth. This is considered to be the quickest fertility decline in human history, as it nearly cut the birthrate in half (Chang, 2015).
It can be seen in the graph below that the population of the youngest generation (0-14) began to decrease significantly in the late '70s (PRC stands for People's Republic of China).
For more extensive information about Mao Zedong's life and policies, including that which occurred before 1960, click on this link: http://www.biography.com/people/mao-tse-tung-9398142#fallout-from-the-great-leap-forward
Header Photo: Xinyang Backyard Furnaces by unknown photographer is in the Public Domain