2023考研英語閱讀中國人口
China s population中國人口
The most surprising demographic crisis出乎意料的人口危機
A new census raises questions about the future ofChinas one-child policy
新的人口普查結果對中國獨生子女政策的未來提出了質疑
DOES China have enough people? The question might seem absurd. The country has longbeen famous both for having the worlds largest population and for having taken draconianmeasures to restrain its growth. Though many people, Chinese and outsiders alike, havelooked aghast at the brutal and coercive excesses of the one-child policy, there has also oftenbeen a grudging acknowledgment that China needed to do something to keep its vastnumbers in check.
中國人夠多嗎?這個問題夠傻的。這個國家一直以來都因為它居于世界首位的龐大人口以及為了控制人口增長而實行的嚴格政策而享有盛名。盡管許多中國人以及外國人對這項獨生子女政策的不講理以及高壓手段瞠目結舌，最終他們還是勉強承認中國需要這項政策來控制龐大的人口。
But new census figures bolster claims made in the past few years that China is suffering froma demographic problem of a different sort: too low a birth rate. The latest numbers, releasedon April 28th and based on the nationwide census conducted last year, show a totalpopulation for Chinese mainland of 1.34 billion. They also reveal a steep decline in the averageannual population growth rate, down to 0.57% in 2000-10, half the rate of 1.07% in theprevious decade. The data imply that the total fertility rate, which is the number of children awoman of child-bearing age can expect to have, on average, during her lifetime, may now bejust 1.4, far below the replacement rate of 2.1, which eventually leads to the populationstabilising.
但是新的全國人口普查數據卻證實了過去幾年關于中國面臨一個截然不同的人口危機的斷言，即中國的人口出生率過低。剛于4月28日發布的數據顯示，中國大陸擁有13億4千萬人口。而年均人口增長率的巨幅下降也躍然紙上：中國年均人口增長率在2000到2010這個10年的區間中下降到了0.57%， 是1990-2000這10年的一半。這份數據顯示總生育率，也就是一位孕齡女性在其一生將平均會有1.4個孩子，遠遠低于2.1的人口更替水平，而人口更替水平是維持人口穩定的標準。
Slower growth is matched by a dramatic ageing of the population. People above the age of 60now represent 13.3% of the total, up from 10.3% in 2000 . In the same period,those under the age of 14 declined from 23% to 17%. A continuation of these trends willplace ever greater burdens on the working young who must support their elderly kin, as well ason government-run pension and health-care systems. Chinas great demographic dividend is almost over.
In addition to skewing the countrys age distribution, the one-child policy has probablyexacerbated its dire gender imbalance. Many more baby boys are born in China than baby girls.China is not unique in this; other countries, notably India, have encountered similar problemswithout coercive population controls. But Chinese officials do not dispute that the one-childpolicy has played a role. Chinas strong cultural imperative for male offspring has led manyfamilies to do whatever they must to ensure that their one permissible child is a son. In theearliest days of the one-child policy, this sometimes meant female infanticide. As ultrasoundtechnology spread, sex-selective abortions became widespread.
獨生子女政策帶來的不僅僅是人口年齡分布傾斜，還很可能加劇了中國嚴重的性別比例失調。在中國，男嬰比女嬰更多。而在這一點上中國并不孤單;其他國家，尤其是印度，也遇到了類似的問題，然而印度并沒有強制性控制人口。但是中國官員不容爭辯的強調獨生子女政策有重要作用。中國重視男性子嗣的深遠文化傳統令千萬家庭想盡一切辦法保證這唯一孩子是個男孩。而超聲波技術的普及也使得具有性別歧視意味的墮胎更加普遍。
The new census data show that little progress isbeing made to counter this troubling trend. Amongnewborns, there were more than 118 boys for every100 girls in 2010. This marks a slight increase overthe 2000 level, and implies that, in about 20 or 25years time, there will not be enough brides foralmost a fifth of todays baby boyswith thepotentially vast destabilising consequences thatcould have.
新的人口普查數據表明解決這個問題的努力收效甚微。2010年新生兒的男女比例大于118:100，這略高于2000年的水平，并且暗示著在未來20到25年的時間內，中國現階段出生的5分之1的男孩將找不到他們的妻子，并且還會伴隨著潛在的巨大不穩定后果。
The census results are likely to intensify debate in China between the powerful population-control bureaucracy and an increasingly vocal group of academic demographers calling for arelaxation of the one-child policy. Their disagreement involves not only the policys future,but also its past.
這次人口普查結果很有可能會激化中國國內存在于持有特權的控制人口的官僚階層和不斷增長的呼吁人口統計學專家之間的辯論，這些學者呼吁放松獨生子女政策。他們之間的辯論不僅會從設計政治遠景，也將觸及過去，而這在中國并非鮮見。
One of the academics, Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Centre for Public Policy,argues that Chinas demographic pattern had already changed dramatically by the time theone-child policy began in 1980. The total fertility rate had been 5.8 in 1950, he notes, and haddeclined sharply to 2.3 by 1980, just above replacement level.
擔任布魯金斯清華公共政策研究中心的主任的王豐作為學者派之一，認為中國的人口模式在自1980年獨生子女政策實行以來已經發生了巨大改變。他解釋說，1950年總生育率為5.8，而1980年巨幅下降至2.3，略微高于人口更替水平的底線。
Other countries achieved similar declines in fertility during the same period. The crucialinfluences, Mr Wang reckons, are the benefits of development, including better health care andsharp drops in high infant-mortality rates which led people to have many children in order toensure that at least some would survive. By implication, coercive controls had little to dowith lowering fertility, which would have happened anyway. Countries that simply improvedaccess to contraceptivesThailand and Indonesia, for instancedid as much to reduce fertilityas China, with its draconian policies. Taiwan, which the government in Beijing regards as anintegral part of China, cut its fertility rate as much as China without population controls.
其他國家自此期間的人口生育率也表現出了大幅下降的趨勢。王豐認為這很大程度上是歸結于福利條件的改善，包括更好的醫療保障以及嬰兒早夭率的大幅下降，而從前嬰兒早夭率居高不下使得許多家庭為了保證能有孩子存活下來而盡量多生。他暗含的意思也就是中國對人口的嚴格控制于低迷的生育率之間并無直接聯系，生育率下降是歷史的趨勢。而像泰國和印度尼西亞這樣的國家僅僅是通過提高避孕用品的普及度，也在降低出生率方面取得了和中國通過嚴格控制獲得的同樣效果。而中國政府稱為其領土不可分割的一部分的臺灣，盡管沒有采取人口控制，也取得類似的效果。
The government denies the one-child policy was irrelevant. It insists that, thanks to the policy, 400m births were averted which would otherwise have taken place, and which the country couldnot have afforded. Ma Jiantang, head of Chinas National Bureau of Statistics, insisted themomentum of fast growth in our population has been controlled effectively thanks to thefamily-planning policy.
中國政府肯定了獨生子女的存在價值。政府堅持稱正是由于這項政策，中國才避免了4億人口的負擔，否則中國就會多出國家疲于應對的4億人口。國家統計局局長馬建堂堅持稱多虧了獨生子女政策，人口快速增長的勢頭得意控制。
There are many reasons for the governments hard-line defence of its one-child policy. One is aperhaps understandable view that China is unique, and that other countries experience isirrelevant. A second is that, though the policy may not have done much to push fertility downat first, it might be keeping it low now. A third is that, if controls were lifted, population growthmight rise. In fact, there is little justification for such fears: in practice, the one-child policyvaries from place to place; it hardly applies to Chinas minorities and is more lightly applied inrural areasand there is no population boom in those parts.
中國政府對于獨生子女政策的篤信處于很多原因。其中一個可以說是也許能令人理解的原因是中國的獨特性，也就是其他國家的經驗不能照搬。另一個原因是，獨生子女政策雖然并沒能在一開始降低出生率，但它可能保持現在低出生率水平。此外，如果放松控制，人口增長率可能再次上升。實際上，這些擔心完全是多余的：正在實施中的獨生子女政策在中國各地的各不相同的，同時它也很難應用于中國的少數民族和農村地區，而在這些地區并沒有人口急速發展的趨勢。
Anyway, argues Joan Kaufman of the Heller Schoolfor Social Policy and Management at BrandeisUniversity, official support for the policy is only partlyto do with its perceived merits: it is also the productof resistance by Chinas family-planningbureaucracy. This has massive institutional clout. The one-child policy istheir raison dtre, says Ms Kaufman.
布蘭代斯大學的海勒社會政策與管理學院的Joan Kaufman女士認為，不管怎么樣，官員對這項政策的支持部分原因只是出于他們在此有利可圖：而這同樣也是為什么人口控制的官僚機構對此持反對態度。獨生子女政策背后是巨大的政府勢力。獨生子女政策對他們來說理所當然，Kaufman女士說。
Mr Wang and his colleagues argue the one-child policy should go. The target reductions infertility rates were reached long ago. Current rates, he says, are below replacement levels andare unsustainable. The time has come for the first big step: a switch to a two-child policy.Research by his group suggests few families in China would choose to have more than two.
王豐和他的同事們則認為獨生子女政策應當繼續。出生率下降的指標早就已經完成。但他說目前的出生率水平是低于人口更替水平，并且很不穩定。邁出重要一步的時刻已經來臨從一個孩子變成兩個孩子。他所在的研究小組表示幾乎不會有中國家庭或作出兩個孩子以上的選擇。
There are signs that the academics are succeeding in their campaign to make the populationdebate less politicised and more evidence-based. Mr Ma of the National Statistics Bureauspoke not only of adhering to the family-planning policy, but also of cautiously and graduallyimproving the policy to promote more balanced population growth in the country. In hiscomments on the census, President Hu Jintao included a vague hint that change could be inthe offing. China would maintain a low birth rate, he said. But it would also stick to andimprove its current family-planning policy. That hardly seems a nod to a free-for-all. Butperhaps a two-for-all may not be out of the question.
已經有跡象表明學者們正試圖讓這場人口之爭規避政治因素，而更多地向理性證據靠攏。國家統計局局長馬建堂并沒有提到繼續之前的獨生子女政策，取而代之則是謹慎地逐漸改進政策以促進中國更加平衡的人口增長。在對于全國人口普查的意見中，胡錦濤主席模糊地暗示政策的變動可能近在眼前。中國的仍將保持低出生率水平，他表示，但是同時也將堅持并改善目前的獨生子女政策想生幾個就生幾個似乎不太可能，但是兩個孩子也許還有希望。
China s population中國人口
The most surprising demographic crisis出乎意料的人口危機
A new census raises questions about the future ofChinas one-child policy
新的人口普查結果對中國獨生子女政策的未來提出了質疑
DOES China have enough people? The question might seem absurd. The country has longbeen famous both for having the worlds largest population and for having taken draconianmeasures to restrain its growth. Though many people, Chinese and outsiders alike, havelooked aghast at the brutal and coercive excesses of the one-child policy, there has also oftenbeen a grudging acknowledgment that China needed to do something to keep its vastnumbers in check.
中國人夠多嗎?這個問題夠傻的。這個國家一直以來都因為它居于世界首位的龐大人口以及為了控制人口增長而實行的嚴格政策而享有盛名。盡管許多中國人以及外國人對這項獨生子女政策的不講理以及高壓手段瞠目結舌，最終他們還是勉強承認中國需要這項政策來控制龐大的人口。
But new census figures bolster claims made in the past few years that China is suffering froma demographic problem of a different sort: too low a birth rate. The latest numbers, releasedon April 28th and based on the nationwide census conducted last year, show a totalpopulation for Chinese mainland of 1.34 billion. They also reveal a steep decline in the averageannual population growth rate, down to 0.57% in 2000-10, half the rate of 1.07% in theprevious decade. The data imply that the total fertility rate, which is the number of children awoman of child-bearing age can expect to have, on average, during her lifetime, may now bejust 1.4, far below the replacement rate of 2.1, which eventually leads to the populationstabilising.
但是新的全國人口普查數據卻證實了過去幾年關于中國面臨一個截然不同的人口危機的斷言，即中國的人口出生率過低。剛于4月28日發布的數據顯示，中國大陸擁有13億4千萬人口。而年均人口增長率的巨幅下降也躍然紙上：中國年均人口增長率在2000到2010這個10年的區間中下降到了0.57%， 是1990-2000這10年的一半。這份數據顯示總生育率，也就是一位孕齡女性在其一生將平均會有1.4個孩子，遠遠低于2.1的人口更替水平，而人口更替水平是維持人口穩定的標準。
Slower growth is matched by a dramatic ageing of the population. People above the age of 60now represent 13.3% of the total, up from 10.3% in 2000 . In the same period,those under the age of 14 declined from 23% to 17%. A continuation of these trends willplace ever greater burdens on the working young who must support their elderly kin, as well ason government-run pension and health-care systems. Chinas great demographic dividend is almost over.
In addition to skewing the countrys age distribution, the one-child policy has probablyexacerbated its dire gender imbalance. Many more baby boys are born in China than baby girls.China is not unique in this; other countries, notably India, have encountered similar problemswithout coercive population controls. But Chinese officials do not dispute that the one-childpolicy has played a role. Chinas strong cultural imperative for male offspring has led manyfamilies to do whatever they must to ensure that their one permissible child is a son. In theearliest days of the one-child policy, this sometimes meant female infanticide. As ultrasoundtechnology spread, sex-selective abortions became widespread.
獨生子女政策帶來的不僅僅是人口年齡分布傾斜，還很可能加劇了中國嚴重的性別比例失調。在中國，男嬰比女嬰更多。而在這一點上中國并不孤單;其他國家，尤其是印度，也遇到了類似的問題，然而印度并沒有強制性控制人口。但是中國官員不容爭辯的強調獨生子女政策有重要作用。中國重視男性子嗣的深遠文化傳統令千萬家庭想盡一切辦法保證這唯一孩子是個男孩。而超聲波技術的普及也使得具有性別歧視意味的墮胎更加普遍。
The new census data show that little progress isbeing made to counter this troubling trend. Amongnewborns, there were more than 118 boys for every100 girls in 2010. This marks a slight increase overthe 2000 level, and implies that, in about 20 or 25years time, there will not be enough brides foralmost a fifth of todays baby boyswith thepotentially vast destabilising consequences thatcould have.
新的人口普查數據表明解決這個問題的努力收效甚微。2010年新生兒的男女比例大于118:100，這略高于2000年的水平，并且暗示著在未來20到25年的時間內，中國現階段出生的5分之1的男孩將找不到他們的妻子，并且還會伴隨著潛在的巨大不穩定后果。
The census results are likely to intensify debate in China between the powerful population-control bureaucracy and an increasingly vocal group of academic demographers calling for arelaxation of the one-child policy. Their disagreement involves not only the policys future,but also its past.
這次人口普查結果很有可能會激化中國國內存在于持有特權的控制人口的官僚階層和不斷增長的呼吁人口統計學專家之間的辯論，這些學者呼吁放松獨生子女政策。他們之間的辯論不僅會從設計政治遠景，也將觸及過去，而這在中國并非鮮見。
One of the academics, Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Centre for Public Policy,argues that Chinas demographic pattern had already changed dramatically by the time theone-child policy began in 1980. The total fertility rate had been 5.8 in 1950, he notes, and haddeclined sharply to 2.3 by 1980, just above replacement level.
擔任布魯金斯清華公共政策研究中心的主任的王豐作為學者派之一，認為中國的人口模式在自1980年獨生子女政策實行以來已經發生了巨大改變。他解釋說，1950年總生育率為5.8，而1980年巨幅下降至2.3，略微高于人口更替水平的底線。
Other countries achieved similar declines in fertility during the same period. The crucialinfluences, Mr Wang reckons, are the benefits of development, including better health care andsharp drops in high infant-mortality rates which led people to have many children in order toensure that at least some would survive. By implication, coercive controls had little to dowith lowering fertility, which would have happened anyway. Countries that simply improvedaccess to contraceptivesThailand and Indonesia, for instancedid as much to reduce fertilityas China, with its draconian policies. Taiwan, which the government in Beijing regards as anintegral part of China, cut its fertility rate as much as China without population controls.
其他國家自此期間的人口生育率也表現出了大幅下降的趨勢。王豐認為這很大程度上是歸結于福利條件的改善，包括更好的醫療保障以及嬰兒早夭率的大幅下降，而從前嬰兒早夭率居高不下使得許多家庭為了保證能有孩子存活下來而盡量多生。他暗含的意思也就是中國對人口的嚴格控制于低迷的生育率之間并無直接聯系，生育率下降是歷史的趨勢。而像泰國和印度尼西亞這樣的國家僅僅是通過提高避孕用品的普及度，也在降低出生率方面取得了和中國通過嚴格控制獲得的同樣效果。而中國政府稱為其領土不可分割的一部分的臺灣，盡管沒有采取人口控制，也取得類似的效果。
The government denies the one-child policy was irrelevant. It insists that, thanks to the policy, 400m births were averted which would otherwise have taken place, and which the country couldnot have afforded. Ma Jiantang, head of Chinas National Bureau of Statistics, insisted themomentum of fast growth in our population has been controlled effectively thanks to thefamily-planning policy.
中國政府肯定了獨生子女的存在價值。政府堅持稱正是由于這項政策，中國才避免了4億人口的負擔，否則中國就會多出國家疲于應對的4億人口。國家統計局局長馬建堂堅持稱多虧了獨生子女政策，人口快速增長的勢頭得意控制。
There are many reasons for the governments hard-line defence of its one-child policy. One is aperhaps understandable view that China is unique, and that other countries experience isirrelevant. A second is that, though the policy may not have done much to push fertility downat first, it might be keeping it low now. A third is that, if controls were lifted, population growthmight rise. In fact, there is little justification for such fears: in practice, the one-child policyvaries from place to place; it hardly applies to Chinas minorities and is more lightly applied inrural areasand there is no population boom in those parts.
中國政府對于獨生子女政策的篤信處于很多原因。其中一個可以說是也許能令人理解的原因是中國的獨特性，也就是其他國家的經驗不能照搬。另一個原因是，獨生子女政策雖然并沒能在一開始降低出生率，但它可能保持現在低出生率水平。此外，如果放松控制，人口增長率可能再次上升。實際上，這些擔心完全是多余的：正在實施中的獨生子女政策在中國各地的各不相同的，同時它也很難應用于中國的少數民族和農村地區，而在這些地區并沒有人口急速發展的趨勢。
Anyway, argues Joan Kaufman of the Heller Schoolfor Social Policy and Management at BrandeisUniversity, official support for the policy is only partlyto do with its perceived merits: it is also the productof resistance by Chinas family-planningbureaucracy. This has massive institutional clout. The one-child policy istheir raison dtre, says Ms Kaufman.
布蘭代斯大學的海勒社會政策與管理學院的Joan Kaufman女士認為，不管怎么樣，官員對這項政策的支持部分原因只是出于他們在此有利可圖：而這同樣也是為什么人口控制的官僚機構對此持反對態度。獨生子女政策背后是巨大的政府勢力。獨生子女政策對他們來說理所當然，Kaufman女士說。
Mr Wang and his colleagues argue the one-child policy should go. The target reductions infertility rates were reached long ago. Current rates, he says, are below replacement levels andare unsustainable. The time has come for the first big step: a switch to a two-child policy.Research by his group suggests few families in China would choose to have more than two.
王豐和他的同事們則認為獨生子女政策應當繼續。出生率下降的指標早就已經完成。但他說目前的出生率水平是低于人口更替水平，并且很不穩定。邁出重要一步的時刻已經來臨從一個孩子變成兩個孩子。他所在的研究小組表示幾乎不會有中國家庭或作出兩個孩子以上的選擇。
There are signs that the academics are succeeding in their campaign to make the populationdebate less politicised and more evidence-based. Mr Ma of the National Statistics Bureauspoke not only of adhering to the family-planning policy, but also of cautiously and graduallyimproving the policy to promote more balanced population growth in the country. In hiscomments on the census, President Hu Jintao included a vague hint that change could be inthe offing. China would maintain a low birth rate, he said. But it would also stick to andimprove its current family-planning policy. That hardly seems a nod to a free-for-all. Butperhaps a two-for-all may not be out of the question.
已經有跡象表明學者們正試圖讓這場人口之爭規避政治因素，而更多地向理性證據靠攏。國家統計局局長馬建堂并沒有提到繼續之前的獨生子女政策，取而代之則是謹慎地逐漸改進政策以促進中國更加平衡的人口增長。在對于全國人口普查的意見中，胡錦濤主席模糊地暗示政策的變動可能近在眼前。中國的仍將保持低出生率水平，他表示，但是同時也將堅持并改善目前的獨生子女政策想生幾個就生幾個似乎不太可能，但是兩個孩子也許還有希望。
