title: Mortality consequences of the 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward famine in China: Debilitation, selection, and mortality crossovers.
abstract: Using retrospective mortality records for three cohorts of newborns (1956-1958, 1959-1961, and 1962-1964) drawn from a large Chinese national fertility survey conducted in 1988, this article examines cohort mortality differences up to age 22, with the aim of identifying debilitating and selection effects of the 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward Famine. The results showed that the mortality level of the non-famine cohort caught up to and exceeded the level of the famine cohort between ages 11 and 12, suggesting both debilitating and selection effects. Multilevel multiprocess models further established a more direct connection between frailties in infancy and frailties at subsequent ages, revealing the underlying dynamics of mortality convergence between the famine and the non-famine cohorts caused by differential excess infant mortality. These results provide important new insights into the human mortality process.
authors.affiliation: Queens College, City University of New York, Department of Sociology, Powdermaker Hall 252, 65-30 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, NY 11367, USA; CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, NY 10010, USA; Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Sociology, Beijing 100732, China. Electronic address: shige.song@qc.cuny.edu.
authors.forename: Shige
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Song
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends; D055361:Multilevel Analysis; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects / Q000401:mortality*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013217:Starvation / Q000266:history* / Q000401:mortality; D016019:Survival Analysis; D055815:Young Adult