Lee, Yoon Jung. (2024). Estimation of the Impact of the Arduous March on the Present Day North Korean Labor Force. Journal of Peace and Unification, 14(1), 91-111.
Many of the recent studies have estimated famine-related deaths in North Korea known as the Arduous March within the limitation of the credible data. Goodkind and West (2001) have estimated the famine-related deaths in North Korea from 1995 to 2000 between 600,000 and 1 million using population projections and less-direct methods using famine-related mortality. Lee (2004) estimated the famine-related deaths in four different methods and compared the numbers. Famine related deaths not only short-term effects but lingers in the society (O’Rourke, 1994). Spoorenberg and Schwekendiek (2012) took into account the deterioration of living conditions in North Korea due to fam ine, in addition to excess deaths caused by famine in the 1990s. Goodkind et al (2011) analyzed larger trend of North Korean mortality after 1993 for over two decades. Choi (2015) compared the changes in North Korean demo graphic structure with South Korea, China and Vietnam. [92]
While North Korea’s economic crisis was foreseen from the 1980s, it es calated in the late 1990s, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the demise of socialism in the Eastern Bloc. By the late 1990s, North Korea faced a severe economic crisis referred to as the “Arduous March.” Originally, the term referred to guerrilla warfare conducted by Kim Il-sung to evade Japanese military operations in the late 1930s. However, in the late 1990s, amidst adverse conditions such as ongoing natural disasters, it came to signify “a desperate period for survival, where people had to do anything to survive” (Ministry of Unification, 2019). While the official term for this period is from 1996 to 2000 by the North Korean Workers’ Party of Korea, some interpretations suggest different starting points acknowledging the cri sis actually began in 1993. In some cases, the crisis of the 1990s as the third Arduous March, following the first Arduous March of the guerrilla warfare of the 1930s, the second Arduous March of the period around the August Faction Incident in 1956 to the Chollima Movement (Ministry of Unification, 2019). [96]
The North Korean economic crisis is commonly blamed on 1) the inherent inefficiency of the socialist system of a planned economy; 2) sharp decline in resource imports, particularly oil, due to reduced dependence on socialist countries like the Soviet Union and containment policies of the US; 3) reduction in food production due to natural disasters such as the cold wave in 1993, hail damage in 1994, and floods in 1995 and 1996. The cessation of large scale grain exports from China in 1994 was another cause; and 4) floods in 1995 and 1996 led to mine flooding, causing a shutdown of industrial facili ties including power generation and chemical industries (Goodkind & West, 2001; Hankyoreh, 2005; Kim 2005, Noland et al, 2001). [96-97]
The distribution system in North Korea practically collapsed during this period and was never fully restored. [97]
Compounded by these circumstances, North Korea faced difficulties in se curing food and resources for essential goods production. For example, oil imports in 1999 were at 1/10th, trade volume at 1/3rd in 1998, and factory operation rates dropped to 3/5th in 1996 compared to the level in 1991 (North Korea Healthcare Network, 1999). The level of food production also dropped from 5-6 million tons in the 1980s to around 2.5 million tons after the mid 1990s, leading to an absolute food shortage. As a result, the late 1990s wit nessed a significant number of deaths in North Korea due to the economic crisis, with estimates ranging from 240,000 to 420,000 (Spoorenberg & Schwekendiek, 2012), 330,000 (Statistics Korea, 2000) to 600,000 (Good kind et al., 2011; Goodkind & West, 2001) or even 3 million (Hwang, 1999; Natsios, 1999). [97]
The last characteristic is that the famine was relatively prolonged in dura tion and progressed gradually, unlike the 3 years between 1996 and 1999 that the North Korean government has declared.4 However, the food shortage in North Korea started in 1994 to continue gradually until 2000 without com plete recovery. [98]