China’s population growth rate surpassed the world average from 1949 to the late 1970s. Under Mao’s leadership, the government promoted pro-natal policies and remunerated families not according to their productivity but by the number of workers. Faced with extreme economic scarcity due to the communist regime’s poor economic policies, parents saw large families as the sole means to avoid an otherwise bleak lifestyle.

David Howden is a MA (Econ.) student at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain and a past winner of The Sir John M. Templeton Fellowships Essay Contest.
AsiaDefense and Foreign PolicyEconomic History and DevelopmentEconomic PolicyEconomyGovernment and PoliticsInternational Economics and DevelopmentPhilosophy and ReligionPolitical HistorySocialism, Communism, and Collectivism
Other Independent Review articles by David Howden
Winter 2013/14 The Icelandic and Irish Banking Crises: Alternative Paths to a Credit-Induced Collapse