Between, 1962 and 1989, the poverty level in china rose to a great extent. The reason behind this event was that there were so many natural calamities that led to destruction. In addition, the poor policies adapted by the Chinese government facilitated to the situation (Hong, 98). The situation changed the daily way of life of the Chinese people. This research paper will evaluate the effects of poverty in china between 1962 and 1989 in relation to the book Daughter of the river.
Poverty during the period led to lack of food among the people. As a result, many people starved to death due to lack of food. This was facilitated by the fact that the population of china was very high during the period. Therefore the available food could not feed all the people who were living at the period (Hong, 57). This reduced the life span of many people due to the lack of food availability.
The social life of the Chinese changed due to the poverty levels. There was no motivation to marry due to the high level of poverty. People had no resources to raise a family and this motivated people to avoid marriage. As a result, the population of the country started to decline.
The Chinese started family planning during the period. Even though the government carried out many campaigns to implement the plan, the Chinese were willing to carry out family planning due to the fact that they could not support a large family as was the case before.
The education level in china declined to a great extent during the period. Many parents were not able to take their children to school due to lack of resources to do so. In addition, the large population made it impossible to educate all the children.
The citizens in the country always talked about the bad governance that was leading to high poverty levels causing deaths. In buses and public places, bad things were discussed about the government. People even died cursing the government (Hong, 78).
The Chinese government resulted to forced labor as a way of fighting poverty. Many people who failure to work in farms as required by the government spent much of time in jail.
In conclusion, the high poverty level was mainly caused by the bad governance of the Chinese government as Hung Ying tries to explain in his book. The communism policies that the chineze government adapted during the period were the main cause of poverty as Hung tries to demonstrate (Hong, 102). This poor governance is what caused poverty that worsened the situation in china.
Work cited.
Hong, Ying. Daughter of the River: An Autobiography. London: Bloomsbury, 2010. Print.
