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GRE周末趣味閱讀The strange case of the missing baby
Demography——The strange case of the missing baby
人口統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)：嬰兒的離奇流失
As the financial crisis hit, birth rates fell in rich countries, as expected. But a persistent baby bust is a real puzzle.
正如人們所預(yù)料那樣，金融危機(jī)的沖擊導(dǎo)致發(fā)達(dá)國家的出生率下降。但持久的生育低谷才是一個真實(shí)的謎團(tuán)。
HE IS not exactly leading by example, but Pope Francis wants more babies. “The GREat challenge of Europe is to return to being mother Europe,” he said last year, while suggesting that young people might be having too few children because they preferred holidays. Europe certainly lacks young souls, particularly in Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain. But the baby shortage is broader: mother America and mother Australia have gone missing, too.
他自己并非以身作則，但教宗方濟(jì)各想要有更多的嬰兒出生。他在去年說道，“歐洲所面臨的重大挑戰(zhàn)就是，恢復(fù)作為一名歐洲母親的身份，”同時也暗示，年輕人也許不喜歡多生幾個孩子，因?yàn)樗麄兏矚g假期。確實(shí)，歐洲缺乏年輕人，尤其是在意大利和西班牙這樣的天主教國家。但嬰兒短缺的范圍更為廣泛：美國母親和澳大利亞母親也越來越少了。
They were certainly present a decade ago. Although birth rates were low in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, and in traditionalist places where it is hard to combine work with motherhood—think Japan, South Korea and southern Europe—many countries were having a baby boom. In the decade to 2008, the total fertility rate (the number of children a woman can expect to have in her lifetime based on present patterns) rose in much of the rich world. In Britain it went up from 1.68 to 1.91; in Australia from 1.76 to 2.02; and in Sweden from 1.5 to 1.91. America even managed to reach the “replacement rate” of 2.1, meaning its population was sustaining itself, without taking migration into account.
在十年前，他們是確實(shí)存在著的。盡管在東歐的前社會主義國家，以及難以將工作與母親身份結(jié)合的傳統(tǒng)之地中，如日本、韓國和歐洲南部地區(qū)，出生率低下—但許多國家都經(jīng)歷過嬰兒潮時期。到2008年為止的十年間，大部分發(fā)達(dá)國家的生育率均上升了(生育率是指在既有模式下，一位女性希望在其一生中生育的孩子的數(shù)量)。在英國，生育率從1.68上升至1.91;在澳大利亞，生育率從1.76上升至2.02;在瑞典，該指標(biāo)從1.5上升至1.91。美國甚至達(dá)到2.1的“人口置換率”，這意味著，在不考慮移民的情況下，該國人口基本保持不變。
There were two reasons, says Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demography. First, women who had delayed having children while they studied and started careers hurried to the maternity wards while they still could. Births to women in their 30s, which had been rising gently for years, went up further in Norway and elsewhere. Second, fertility among women in their20s stopped falling.
維也納人口統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)研究所的托馬斯·索博特卡表示，導(dǎo)致這種現(xiàn)象的原因有兩個。首先，那些因?yàn)閷W(xué)習(xí)或者事業(yè)剛起步而延遲懷孕的女性都趁自己身體狀況允許的條件下著急生育。這些年來，30多歲才生育的女性數(shù)量一直在緩慢增加，在挪威以及別的地方增長得更快。其次，20多歲生育的女性數(shù)量也逐漸減少。
The financial crisis abruptly turned the boom to bust. Countries in the European Union delivered 5,469,000 babies in 2008 but only 5,075,000 in 2013—a drop of over 7%. That was too much for Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Huggies nappies, which announced in 2012 that it would pull out of most of Europe. In America the fertility rate fell from a peak of 2.12 in 2007to 1.86 in 2014. Ken Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire, estimated that America was missing 2.3m babies.
金融危機(jī)突然地將嬰兒潮轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)樯凸?。?008年，歐盟國家共有5，469,000名嬰兒出生，而在2013年，僅有5,075,000名——下跌超過7%。這對于好奇紙尿布的制造商金佰利克拉克而言，實(shí)在是太多了。金佰利在2012年宣布將退出大部分歐洲市場。在美國，生育率從2007年的頂點(diǎn)值2.12跌至2014年的1.86。新罕布爾什大學(xué)的人口學(xué)家肯·約翰遜估計(jì)，美國已流失230萬嬰兒。
The crunch was unsurprising: anxiety about jobs and money puts people off children. But a rich-world baby bust that began predictably turned into a puzzle.
這一窘境在人們意料之中：對工作和金錢的擔(dān)憂使得人們推遲要孩子的計(jì)劃。但原本可預(yù)計(jì)的生育低谷發(fā)生在發(fā)達(dá)國家卻變成了一個謎。
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