There is a lack of official report by the Chinese government regarding the exact number of abnormal deaths during the Great Leap Forward．Using a modified Lee-Carter mortality prediction mod- el，this study conducts reverse prediction based on China’s official age-specific mortality data to recon- struct and calculate the single-year-age mortality rate and the normal deaths assuming that there was no great famine．Then we estimate the abnormal deaths during the Great Leap Forward occurring between 1958 and 1961．If there had been no famine，there would have been 43. 39 to 43. 85 million normal deaths．With famine，abnormal deaths are estimated to be between 16. 24 and 23. 37 million． Our results suggest that the medium estimation of the abnormal deaths during the Great Leap Forward stands at no more than 19. 8 million．

There is a lack of official report by the Chinese government regarding the exact number of abnormal deaths during the Great Leap Forward．Using a modified Lee-Carter mortality prediction model，this study conducts reverse prediction based on China’s official age-specific mortality data to recon- struct and calculate the single-year-age mortality rate and the normal deaths assuming that there was no great famine．Then we estimate the abnormal deaths during the Great Leap Forward occurring between 1958 and 1961．If there had been no famine，there would have been 43. 39 to 43. 85 million normal deaths．With famine，abnormal deaths are estimated to be between 16. 24 and 23. 37 million． Our results suggest that the medium estimation of the abnormal deaths during the Great Leap Forward stands at no more than 19. 8 million．