2015考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：中国人口老化

　　2015考研英语复习正是强化复习阶段，考研英语阅读在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。新东方名师范猛老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》.杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。

　　Getting on

　　人口老化

　　The consequences of an ageing population

　　人口老龄化的苦果

　　Jun 23rd 2011 | from the print edition

　　THE CLIENTELE OF the Le Amor retirement home in the Fragrant Hills of western Beijing are noordinary folk. Staff boast that one of them taught President Hu Jintao when he was atuniversity. Another is the descendant of a nutritionist who worked for the Empress DowagerCixi, China’s last great imperial ruler. A third is a former senior official in the party’s top anti-corruption body. By the grim standards of such homes in China, it seems they are beingtreated well. If they wish, they can rent a suite of rooms, including one for a live-in servant. Allrooms have an emergency button.

　　住在北京西郊香山Le Amor退休公寓里的住户都不是平民百姓。那里的员工自夸退休公寓里的其中一位住户曾经是胡锦涛在大学里的老师。还有一个住户是以前为中国最后一个重量级的帝国统治者——慈禧太后掌厨的御厨的后代。另外，三分之一的共产党最高纪委机构的前高级官员们。从中国的此类住宅的严格规格来看，这些退休干部似乎养尊处优。如果他们想要的话，他们可以租上一套房间，包括一间让寄宿保姆住下的房间。所有房间中都有一个紧急按钮。

　　The home’s director is coy about how she secured such a desirable rural location for her$10m venture, +away from the city’s downtown smog. Le Amor is one of only a handful ofprivately run retirement homes in the capital aimed at the well-to-do. Looking after the elderly isa business in its infancy in China, where that task usually falls to the offspring, if any. But LeAmor’s market has very attractive prospects.

　　Le Amor退休公寓的总裁透露了她为什么要在这个远离城市喧嚣胀气的宜人乡间建立她耗资1000万美元的养老公司。在北京仅有的少数针对富人建立的私营养老院中，Le Amor是其中之一。在养老重担全由子女承担的中国，如果有养老业这个行业的话，它也只是刚刚起步。然而，Le Amor的市场拥有十分诱人的前景。

　　Over the next few years China will undergo a hugedemographic shift. The share of people over 60 inthe total population will increase from 12.5% in2010 to 20% in 2020. By 2030 their number willdouble from today’s 178m. The dependency ratio—the number of people of non-working age, bothyoung and old, as a proportion of those of workingage—will bottom out between 2012 and 2015 at anexceptionally low level before rebounding, says areport by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.Put another way, China’s “demographicdividend”—the availability of lots of young workers—which helped fuel its growth will soonbegin to disappear. The overall population will start to grow faster than that of working age.One trigger for this could be a sharp economic slowdown. Many Chinese have recently becomefamiliar with the “Lewis turning point”, named after a 20th-century economist from St Lucia,Arthur Lewis, who said that industrial wages start to rise quickly when a country’s rural laboursurplus dries up.

　　在未来的几年中，中国将会经历一次巨大的人口转变。预计，六十岁以上的人口占总人口的比例将会从2010年的12.5%上升到2020年的20%。到了2030年，中国六十岁以上的人口数量将会是现在178万的两倍之多。中国社会科学院的一份报告指出，中国的抚养率——衡量包括年轻人和老年人的非劳动年龄人口和劳动年龄人口的比值——将会在2012年至2015年之间降到一个极低的水平，直到反弹。另一种说法是，中国的“人口红利”——大量年轻劳动力的供给——曾经刺激了中国经济的增长，它马上就要开始消失了。中国的总人口数量将开始比劳动年龄人口数量增加的更快。这一旦触发就可能产生一次经济急剧放缓。现在，许多中国人已经对“刘易斯拐点”十分熟悉了，“刘易斯拐点”是以一位二十世纪来自圣卢西亚的经济学家Arthur Lewis的名字来命名的，他曾指出当一个国家的农村劳动剩余消失时，该国的工业工资将开始快速上涨。

　　One way this will show up is in a proliferation of places like Le Amor. A lot of schools will closedown. Wang Feng of the Brookings Institution notes that China’s primary-school enrolmentdropped from 25.3m in 1995 to 16.7m in 2008. Revoking the one-child policy would probablynot make a big difference. Chinese couples have small families mainly because children areexpensive, Mr Wang argues. China’s rapid ageing, combined with a shrinking labour force, will“fundamentally reshape the Chinese economy and society”, he suggests. In the next decadethe number of people aged 20-24 will drop by 50%, Mr Wang predicts.

　　非劳动年龄人口的增长会以像Le Amor.这样的养老院扩张的形式出现。许多学校将会停学。Brookings研究所的王峰指出，中国的中学录取人数从1995年的2530万降到了2008年的1670万。取消独生子女政策可能也不会使这产生较大的改观。王峰指出，中国夫妇选择三口之家是因为抚养孩子的成本高昂。同时，他还指出，中国迅速的老龄化，随同劳动力萎缩会彻底的重塑中国的经济和社会。王峰预计，在未来的几十年中，中国20至24岁人口的数量将会下降到50%。

　　Optimists believe China still has several more years before the economic impact of an ageingpopulation becomes apparent. China’s commerce minister, Chen Deming, said in March 2010that the country could still enjoy another decade of “demographic dividends”. In a report lastyear Morgan Stanley pointed to 80m-100m surplus labourers in the countryside who could beemployed in urban areas (although as this special report has argued, that might not be easy).It also expressed optimism about continuing productivity gains from rising levels ofeducation and technology use.

　　乐观者们相信，中国还要度过好几年老龄人口对经济的冲击才会变得明显。中国商务部部长，陈德铭指出，2010年三月，中国仍然能够享受另外一个十年的“人口红利”。摩根史坦利投资公司在去年的一份报告表明，在中国农村，能够去城市里打工的剩余劳动力还有8000万到1亿人(尽管这份特殊的报告指出这一情况，但是老龄化问题可能不会这么简单)。这还显示出人们对于因为教育水平的提高和技术的使用而引起的生产率的持续增长的乐观。

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