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When we zoom in on this narrow window of cohorts who graduated from high school just before and just after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the exogenous loss of opportunity due to the suspension of higher education remains arguably the only difference between these neighbouring cohorts. Had they been born just a year or two afterwards, they would not have experienced this interruption to their education schedule they would have graduated from high school just in time to participate in the college admission exam. Many of the high school graduates born before the end of the Cultural Revolution never even tried for college admission, because they had already started jobs or even families, and it simply became too costly to go back to school. Using data from the baseline wave of China Family Panel Study (CFPS), a nationally representative survey conducted in 2010, we compare the beliefs and corresponding behaviours of high school graduates who did not go on to obtain university degrees versus those who did, focusing on the cohorts who graduated just before and just after the Cultural Revolution ended and college admission resumed.
![intergenerational transmission of trauma cultural revolution intergenerational transmission of trauma cultural revolution](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/thetransmissionofmorinarratives-150703035023-lva1-app6892/95/the-transmission-of-maaori-narratives-of-historical-intergenerational-trauma-with-principles-and-values-through-traditional-and-contemporary-waiata-3-638.jpg)
In recent research, we exploit this episode to examine how particular life experiences, shaped by political turmoil outside of individual citizens’ control, may have affected their beliefs (Roland and Yang 2017). How being part of the ‘lost generation’ shaped beliefs Members of the ‘lost generation’ who are now entering retirement age have expressed strong bitterness about their lost opportunities. This ten-year lack of access to serious higher education among high school graduates generated what was called the ‘lost generation’ (e.g. Among the first policies that were enacted immediately following the end of the Cultural Revolution was the reintroduction of the college entrance exam, Gaokao, in 1977 after a ten-year interruption. Members of the Gang of Four (which included Jiang Qing, Mao's wife) who had led the CCP during that period were immediately arrested after Mao's death. The Cultural Revolution ended abruptly with the death of Mao Zedong in October 1976. Doctors were replaced by ‘barefoot doctors’ with a minimum education performing traditional Chinese medicine based on acupuncture. For example, traditional medicine was considered bourgeois and was abandoned in universities. While some universities remained open during the Cultural Revolution, the standard curriculum was replaced by ‘revolutionary’ education. One aspect of the Cultural Revolution that was particularly salient for millions of people was the shutdown of the Chinese university system between 19. Ancient Chinese culture was denounced as counterrevolutionary and Red Guards destroyed large parts of the rich Chinese cultural patrimony: monuments, paintings, books, and so on. Competing groups of Red Guards fought each other.
![intergenerational transmission of trauma cultural revolution intergenerational transmission of trauma cultural revolution](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fEiVNLTORkI/hq2.jpg)
Parts of the government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were paralysed, millions of cadres were demoted and denounced in mass trials. In practice, this led to decade-long chaos. China’s leader, Mao Zedong, wanted to eradicate all ‘bourgeois thinking’ and forced people to ‘remodel their world view’. Fifty years ago, the Cultural Revolution in China was in full swing.