Why Did Chinas Population Grow so Quickly?

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.