今天我们一起精读《The。Economist》刊：
(相关资料图)
Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences
全球生育率大崩溃，经济后果影响深刻
The baby-bust economy
婴儿荒经济
What might change the world’s diredemographic trajectory?
什么才能改变可怕的世界人口趋势
Dire
/ˈdaɪər/
adj.极其严重的;危急的;极糟的;极差的
living in dire poverty
生活赤贫
Such action may have dire consequences .
这种行为可能产生严重后果。
【导读】
人口问题或许是21世纪最受关注的议题之一。去年，统计局数据显示，..人口创下近60年新低，每年新生儿低于一千万。前不久，日本也爆出相关新闻，日本新生儿首次跌破创纪录的80万。前天，日恩首相表示，今后将额外拿出250亿美金的津贴——宁可让原本就负债累累的日本政府继续承担更多负债——也要希望能提高出生率。这种案例到处可见。排除移民因素，所有发达国家都存在严重的出生率下降问题。
近期，英国《The。Economist》刊登了专题报道，跟大家分享一下不同的视角。
这篇文章共12段，加油！
译文及学习笔记：
*序号按照原文段落顺序排列
*中文译文为笔者自译，仅供学习交流使用，如有任何错误或不同意见，诚请批评指正!
1
In the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution the world’s population, like its wealth, has exploded. Before the end of this century, however, the number of people on the planet could shrink for the first time since the Black Death. The root cause is not a surge in deaths, but a slump in births. Across much of the world the fertility rate, the average number of births per woman, is collapsing. Although the trend may be familiar, its extent and its consequences are not. Even as artificial intelligence (ai) leads to surging optimism in some quarters, the baby bust hangs over the future of the world economy.
从工业革命后的大约250年间，世界人口和世界财富一样爆发式增长。然而，这个世纪结束前，地球总人口出现了自黑死病以来的首次下降。根本原因不是死亡率激增，而是出生率的断崖式下降。世界大部分地区的生育率，即每名妇女生育的孩子数量，都在下降。虽然这种趋势很多人并不感到意外，但其程度和结果却尚未被人充分理解。虽然人工智能激发了一些人乐观的情绪，但世界经济的未来仍在婴儿荒阴影的笼罩之中。
2
In 2000 the world’s fertility rate was births per woman, comfortably above the “replacement rate” of , at which a population is stable. Today it is and falling. The largest 15 countries by GDP all have a fertility rate below the replacement rate. That includes America and much of the rich world, but also India, neither of which is rich but which together account for more than a third of the global population.
2000年，世界生育率是每位妇女平均生育个孩子，远远超出的“替代率”，当时人口还很稳定。如今生育率是，并且还在继续下降。GDP最高的前15个国家的生育率均低于替代率。这包括了美国在内的大部分发达国家，也包括印度和..，虽然都不是发达国家，但人口加起来超过世界的三分之一。
replacement rate
人口替代率是为使一个国家或某个区域在人口上出生与死亡达到某种相对的平衡而产生的一个比率，即每个妇女平均生小孩的个数，去扭转失调或保持平衡状态。联合国推算指出，标准的人口替代率为。
3
The result is that in much of the world the patter of tiny feet is being drowned out by the clatter of walking sticks. The prime examples of ageing countries are no longer just Japan and Italy but also include Brazil, Mexico and Thailand. By 2030 more than half the inhabitants of East and South-East Asia will be over 40. As the old die and are not fully replaced, populations are likely to shrink. Outside Africa, the world’s population is forecast to peak in the 2050s and end the century smaller than it is today. Even in Africa, the fertility rate is falling fast.
带来的结果是世界的大部分地方，蹒跚学步的啪嗒声将被拐棍的拄地声淹没。老龄化国家的典型例子将不再是日本和意大利，还会包括巴西、墨西哥和泰国。2030年，一半多的东亚和东南亚的居民将会超过40岁。当老年人逝去，而没有充足的新生儿补充进来的时候，人口规模将会缩水。除开非洲，世界人口预计将在本世纪中期达到顶峰，本世纪末的人口将比现在少很多。甚至在非洲，生育率也在迅速下降。
Drowned out
/draʊnd aʊt/
淹没
The hubbub of voices drowned out the host's voice.
嘈杂的声音淹没了主人的声音。
Many families were drowned out when the river burst its banks.
河水越过大堤使许多人无家可归。
4
Whatever some environmentalists say, a shrinking population creates problems. The world is not close to full and the economic difficulties resulting from fewer young people are many. The obvious one is that it is getting harder to support the world’s pensioners. Retired folkdraw onthe output of the working-aged, either through the state, which levies taxes on workers to pay public pensions, or by cashing in savings to buy goods and services or because relatives provide care unpaid. But whereas the rich world currently has around three people between 20 and 64 years old for everyone over 65, by 2050 it will have less than two. The implications are higher taxes, later retirements, lower real returns for savers and, possibly, government budget crises.
不管一些环保专家怎么说，人口不断减少肯定会带来问题。世界人口尚不饱和，年轻人减少带来的经济困难很多。一个显而易见的问题是，越来越难以养活全世界的养老金领取者。退休人员利用适龄工作人员的“产出”，要么通过国家向员工征税来支付公共养老金，要么将储蓄拿出来购买商品和服务，要么由亲戚提供无偿照顾。但是，在发达国家，每一个65岁以上的老人都有大约3名在20-64岁之间的人支撑，而到了2050年，这一人数将不到2人。这意味着更高的税收，更晚的退休年龄，更低的储蓄回报率，以及有可能的政府预算危机。
Draw on
利用，凭借，（时光）渐渐过去
He drew on his experience as a yachtsman to make a documentary programme.
他凭借曾经做过快艇驾驶员的经验制作了一档纪实节目。
As the afternoon drew on we were joined by more of the regulars.
随着午后时光的渐渐消逝,又有些老主顾加入到我们当中来了。
5
Low ratios of workers to pensioners are only one problem stemming from collapsing fertility. As we explain this week, younger people have more of what psychologists call “fluid intelligence”, the ability to think creatively so as to solve problems in entirely new ways .
劳动人口和养老金领取者之间的比例过低只是生育率下降造成的问题之一。正如我们本周所解释的那样，年轻人拥有更多心理学家所说的“流体智力”，一种能够使用创造性的思维，以全新的方式解决问题的能力。
Fluid Intelligence
流体智力是一种以生理为基础的认知能力，如知觉、记忆、运算速度、推理能力等。流体智力是与晶体智力相对应的概念，流体智力随年龄的老化而减退。而晶体智力则并不随年龄的老化而减退，晶体智力主要指学会的技能、语言文字能力、判断力、联想力等。
6
This youthful dynamism complements the accumulated knowledge of older workers. It also brings change. Patents filed by the youngest inventors are much more likely to cover breakthrough innovations. Older countries—and, it turns out, their young people—are less enterprising and less comfortable taking risks. Elderly electorates ossifypolitics, too. Because the old benefit less than the young when economies grow, they have proved less keen on pro-growth policies, especially housebuilding. Creative destruction is likely to be rarer in ageing societies, suppressing productivity growth in ways that compound into an enormous missed opportunity.
这种年轻的活力为年长员工积累的知识提供了有益补充。而且也带来了变化。最年轻的发明家申请的专利更有可能涵盖重大创新突破。老龄化程度比较高的国家，事实证明，他们的年轻人缺乏进取心，更不愿意冒险，老年选民也使政治僵化。因为在经济增长时，老年人没有年轻人受益多，他们很少关心促进经济增长的政策，特别是房屋建设。创造性破坏在老龄化社会中可能更罕见，这也抑制了生产力的发展，从而加剧措施大量机遇。
electorates
/ɪˈlɛktərəts/
n.(一国或一地区的)全体选民
electorate的复数
ossify
/ˈɑːsɪfaɪ/
v.僵化;使固定不变;使骨化;骨质化
7
All things considered, it is temptingto cast low fertility rates as a crisis to be solved. Many of its underlying causes, though, are in themselves welcome. As people have become richer they have tended to have fewer children. Today they face different trade-offs between work and family, and these are mostly better ones. The populist conservatives who claim low fertility is a sign of society’s failure and call for a return to traditional family values are wrong. More choice is a good thing, and no one owes it to others to bring up children.
考虑到所有因素，人们很容易将低生育率当成一个待解决的危机。然而，造成这一危机的潜在原因是人们愿意接受这样的变化。当人们变得越富有，生育的孩子就越少。如今他们在工作和家庭之间面临着艰难抉择，而这样的选择大多是更好的。宣称低生育率是社会失败的标志，提倡回归传统家庭价值观的民粹主义保守派错了。更多的选择是好事，别人没有义务帮你养大孩子。
Tempt
vt.引诱;诱惑;劝诱;鼓动;怂恿;利诱
I was tempted by the dessert menu.
甜食菜单馋得我垂涎欲滴。
Nothing would tempt me to live here.
什么也吸引不了我到这里居住。
8
Liberals’ impulse to encourage more immigration is more noble. But it, too, is a misdiagnosis. Immigration in the rich world today is at a record high, helping individual countries tackle worker shortages. But the global nature of the fertility slump means that, by the middle of the century, the world is likely to face a dearthof young educated workers unless something changes.
自由主义者鼓励增加移民的冲动更为高尚。但是，这也同样是一种误判。如今，发达国家的移民数量已经创下了新高，帮助各国解决了劳动力短缺的问题。但全球生育率下降的本质意味着，到了本世纪中期，除非有什么改变，世界将面临着年轻的受过教育的劳动力的短缺问题。
Dearth
/dɜːrθ/
n.缺乏;不足
9
What might that be? People often tell pollsters they want more children than they have. This gap between aspiration and reality could be in part because would-be parents—who, in effect, subsidise future childless pensioners—cannot afford to have more children, or because of other policy failures, such as housing shortages or inadequate fertility treatment. Yet even if these are fixed, economic development is still likely to lead to a fall in fertility below the replacement rate. Pro-family policies have a disappointing record. Singapore offers lavish grants, tax rebates and child-care subsidies—but has a fertility rate of .
这会导致什么呢？人们经常告诉民意调查者他们想要更多孩子。这种愿望和现实之间的差距一部分是因为这些准父母（实际上在补贴未来没有孩子的养老金领取者）负担不起更多孩子，或者因为其他政策的失败，比如房屋短缺或生育治疗不足。然而，即便这些问题都能解决，经济发展仍有可能导致生育率下降到替代率之下。家庭优先的政策效果令人失望。新加坡提供慷慨的补助，退税和育儿津贴，但是该国的生育率只有。
10
Unleashing the potential of the world’s poor would ease the shortage of educated young workers without more births. Two-thirds of ..children live in the countryside and attend mostly dreadful schools; the same fraction of 25- to 34-year-olds in India have not completed upper secondary education. Africa’s pool of young people will continue to grow for decades. Boosting their skills is desirable in itself, and might also cast more young migrants as innovators in otherwise-stagnant economies. Yet encouraging development is hard—and the sooner places get rich, the sooner they get old.
在没有增加生育的情况下，释放全世界穷人的潜力可能会缓解受教育年轻劳动力短缺问题。三分之二的...儿童生活在农村，大部分上的学校都很糟糕。印度25-34岁之间也有三分之二的人没有完成高中教育。非洲的年轻群体也将在未来几十年内继续增长。提高他们的能力本身是可取的，可能也会使更多的年轻人移民到停滞不前的经济体，成为那里的创新者。但是鼓励发展是困难的——一个地方越早富裕起来，就会越早衰老。
11
Eventually, therefore, the world will have to make do withfewer youngsters—and perhaps with a shrinking population. With that in mind, recent advances in AI could not have come at a better time. An über-productive ai-infused economy might find it easy to support a greater number of retired people. Eventually ai may be able to generate ideas by itself, reducing the need for human intelligence. Combined with robotics, ai may also make caring for the elderly less labour-intensive. Such innovations will certainly be in high demand.
最终，全世界还是得靠越来越少的年轻人——以及或许不断萎缩的人口凑合着过下去。鉴于此，AI领域取得的最近成就来的正是时候。一个由AI驱动的超高生产力的经济体可能会发现，为大量退休人员提供支持并不难。最终AI将会自主产生想法，减少对人类智能的需求。与机器人技术相结合，AI还有可能降低照顾老人的劳动强度。这些创新将会有很大需求。
Make do with
凑合着用
Why make do with a copy if you can afford the genuine article?
要是买得起真品，为什么还要拿复制品来凑合呢？
12
If technology does allow humanity to overcome the baby bust, it will fit the historical pattern. Unexpected productivity advances meant that demographic time-bombs, such as the mass starvation predicted by Thomas Malthus in the 18th century, failed to detonate. Fewer babies means less human genius. But that might be a problem human genius can fix.
如果科技能够允许人性克服婴儿荒，这将符合历史模式。意想不到的生产力进步意味着人口隐患的炸弹并不会引爆，比如托马斯·马尔萨斯预测的大饥荒。越少的儿童，意味着越少的天才。但是或者这个问题只能由人类天才才能解决吧。
Detonate
/ˈdetəneɪt/
v.(使)爆炸;引爆;起爆
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