was state-sponsored. However, with Deng Xiaoping's rise to power in 1978 came the initiation of reforms that steadily began to alleviate some of the disparity between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou holders. Restrictions have been loosened on movement from rural areas to smaller cities, although migration to large cities such as Beijing and Tianjin is still heavily regulated. Greater autonomy has also been ceded to local governments in deciding quotas and eligibility criteria for converting hukou status. Legislation has been enacted that allow migrant workers to obtain temporary residency permits, although these permits do not allow them access to the same benefits as possessed by urban residents. However, with living outside the system now much more practical than it used to be, a number of migrant workers do not acquire the temporary residency permits – primarily because they do not have the resources or concrete employment offers to do so – and as such live in danger of being forced to return to the countryside. In 2014, the central government announced reform that among other things eliminated the division between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou status. Effect on rural population Under the hukou system implemented by the central government in 1958, while holders of the non-agricultural hukou status were given ration cards for everyday necessities, including food and textiles, rural residents were forced to produce everything themselves. Whereas the state provided housing in the city, individuals had to construct their own homes. The state invested in education, arranged employment, and provided retirement benefits for city residents, and provided none of these services for their rural citizens. These disparities have left the rural populace highly disadvantaged, and tragedies such as the famine of the Great Leap Forward primarily ravaged rural Chinese citizens. Surviving the famine During the Great Chinese Famine from 1958 to 1962, having an urban versus a rural hukou could mean the difference between life and death. During this period, nearly all of the approximately 600 million rural hukou residents were collectivized into village communal farms, where their agricultural output - after state taxes - would be their only source of food. With institutionalized exaggeration of output figures by local Communist leaders and massive declines in production, state taxes during those years confiscated nearly all food in many rural communes, leading to mass starvation and the deaths of more than 65 million Chinese people. The 100 million urban hukou residents, however,