Could I please have a source on China being that good, especially pre-Deng Xiaoping’s reforms?
The life expectancy of China has consistently gone up since 1960[1] (where the World Bank data starts).
There is a larger change, in absolute terms, from 1960 to 1980 (roughly when the reforms seriously started) than from 1980 to 2017. The increase is from 44.3 in 1960 to 66.4 in 1979, which is much larger than the rest of the world(52.6 to 62.6). To put it in perspective, if you’re an average[2] Chinese person, it means that your life expectancy rose ~ as rapidly as your age for 20 full years, so if the curve continued you’d never die.
Of course, this is partially because the low-hanging fruits are plucked first because they are easier to pluck, but nonetheless it’s substantive evidence that public health before the reforms must have done something right.
I enjoyed reading Development as Freedom by Sen in undergrad. It was an interesting read for me to get an understanding of non-consequentialist approaches to development, though I still think he underestimated the value of flow-through effects from GDP/scientific progress.
Thank you, Linch. My question was more focused on the education part than the health part, although I agree I should have made that clearer. The information you provided is still good to know, though—and impressive indeed.
On a meta-level, in general I think your conversation with lucy is overly acrimonious, and it would be helpful to identify clear cruxes, have more of a scout’s mindset, etc.
My read of the situation is that you (and other EAs upvoting or downvoting content) have better global priors, but lucy has more domain knowledge in the specific areas they chose to talk about.
I do understand that it’s very frustrating for you to be in a developing country and constantly see people vote against their economic best interests, so I understand a need to vent, especially in a “safe space” of a pro-growth forum like this one.
However, lucy likely also feels frustrated about saying what they believe to be true things (or at least well-established beliefs in the field) and getting what they may perceive to be unjustifiably attacked by people who have different politics or epistemic worldviews.
My personal suggestion is to have a stronger “collaborative truth-seeking attitude” and engage more respectfully, though I understand if either you or lucy aren’t up for it, and would rather tap out.
Thank you for your admonition, Linch. I’d point out I wouldn’t like to be grouped together with people up- or downvoting lucy; I haven’t voted on their comments except but one each way. As for the actual content of the conversation, this is not how I wanted it to be perceived; I wonder if you could help me identify what went wrong at a more detailed level, in private. I know about identifying clear cruxes and having a scout’s mindset, I endorse collaborative truth-seeking, yet here I failed to implement these things and it is not clear to me why; I could use help with that.
For onlookers, I want to say I really appreciate bruno’s top-level comment and that I have a lot of respect for bruno’s contributions, both here and elsewhere. The comment I made two levels up was probably stronger than warranted and I really appreciate bruno taking it in stride, etc.
Apologies for the delayed response. I was surprised at not finding a single source (after several minutes of searching) that plotted literacy rates across time, however:
Prior to 1949, China faced a stark literacy rate of only 15 to 25 percent, as well as lacking educational facilities with minimal national curricular goals. But as the Chinese moved into the 1950s under a new leadership and social vision, a national agenda to expand the rate of literacy and provide education for the majority of Chinese youth was underway.
At least naively, this suggests a ~60% absolute change in literacy rates from 1949-~1980, which is higher than in the next 40 years (since you cannot go above 100%).
I think the change here actually understates the impact of the first 30 years, since there’s an obvious delay between the implementation of a schooling system and the adult literacy rate (plus at least naively, we would expect the Cultural Revolution to have wiped out some of the progress).
One thing to flag with cobbling sources together is that there’s a risk of using different (implicit or explicit) operationalizations, so the exact number can’t be relied upon as much.
However, I think it’s significantly more likely than not that under most reasonable operationalizations of adult literacy, the first 30 years of China under CCP rule was more influential than the next 40.
The life expectancy of China has consistently gone up since 1960[1] (where the World Bank data starts).
There is a larger change, in absolute terms, from 1960 to 1980 (roughly when the reforms seriously started) than from 1980 to 2017. The increase is from 44.3 in 1960 to 66.4 in 1979, which is much larger than the rest of the world(52.6 to 62.6). To put it in perspective, if you’re an average[2] Chinese person, it means that your life expectancy rose ~ as rapidly as your age for 20 full years, so if the curve continued you’d never die.
Of course, this is partially because the low-hanging fruits are plucked first because they are easier to pluck, but nonetheless it’s substantive evidence that public health before the reforms must have done something right.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=CN
[2] Somewhat misleading to use the average since some of the advances came from infant mortality, but still.
Thanks Linch. You are right.
Amartya Sen compared China and India 30 years ago in his book Hunger and Public Action, it is worth reading today after all these years.
https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198283652.001.0001/acprof-9780198283652-chapter-11
I enjoyed reading Development as Freedom by Sen in undergrad. It was an interesting read for me to get an understanding of non-consequentialist approaches to development, though I still think he underestimated the value of flow-through effects from GDP/scientific progress.
I consider Hunger and Public Action as one of Sen’s best books, it is available as open access online here
Thank you, Linch. My question was more focused on the education part than the health part, although I agree I should have made that clearer. The information you provided is still good to know, though—and impressive indeed.
On a meta-level, in general I think your conversation with lucy is overly acrimonious, and it would be helpful to identify clear cruxes, have more of a scout’s mindset, etc.
My read of the situation is that you (and other EAs upvoting or downvoting content) have better global priors, but lucy has more domain knowledge in the specific areas they chose to talk about.
I do understand that it’s very frustrating for you to be in a developing country and constantly see people vote against their economic best interests, so I understand a need to vent, especially in a “safe space” of a pro-growth forum like this one.
However, lucy likely also feels frustrated about saying what they believe to be true things (or at least well-established beliefs in the field) and getting what they may perceive to be unjustifiably attacked by people who have different politics or epistemic worldviews.
My personal suggestion is to have a stronger “collaborative truth-seeking attitude” and engage more respectfully, though I understand if either you or lucy aren’t up for it, and would rather tap out.
Thank you for your admonition, Linch. I’d point out I wouldn’t like to be grouped together with people up- or downvoting lucy; I haven’t voted on their comments except but one each way. As for the actual content of the conversation, this is not how I wanted it to be perceived; I wonder if you could help me identify what went wrong at a more detailed level, in private. I know about identifying clear cruxes and having a scout’s mindset, I endorse collaborative truth-seeking, yet here I failed to implement these things and it is not clear to me why; I could use help with that.
(I talked more with brunoparga over PM).
For onlookers, I want to say I really appreciate bruno’s top-level comment and that I have a lot of respect for bruno’s contributions, both here and elsewhere. The comment I made two levels up was probably stronger than warranted and I really appreciate bruno taking it in stride, etc.
Great comment—strong upvote! :)
Apologies for the delayed response. I was surprised at not finding a single source (after several minutes of searching) that plotted literacy rates across time, however:
http://schugurensky.faculty.asu.edu/moments/1949china.html
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271336/literacy-in-china/
At least naively, this suggests a ~60% absolute change in literacy rates from 1949-~1980, which is higher than in the next 40 years (since you cannot go above 100%).
I think the change here actually understates the impact of the first 30 years, since there’s an obvious delay between the implementation of a schooling system and the adult literacy rate (plus at least naively, we would expect the Cultural Revolution to have wiped out some of the progress).
One thing to flag with cobbling sources together is that there’s a risk of using different (implicit or explicit) operationalizations, so the exact number can’t be relied upon as much.
However, I think it’s significantly more likely than not that under most reasonable operationalizations of adult literacy, the first 30 years of China under CCP rule was more influential than the next 40.
Thanks Linch, a better indicator than adult literacy is youth literacy.
In China 1950, for kids aged 15-19 21.86% of boys had no education, for girls 49.9% had no education.
By 1980 for kids 15-19 1.32% of boys and 3.88% of girls had no education. This is a dramatic improvement.
the cultural revolution only stalled increase in education beyond 9th grade, so it had very little effect on literacy rates