考研英语水平的进步，不仅要记单词，还需要阅读外语文献等资料。接下来，小编为2024考研者们，整理出——2024考研英语同源外刊7月:全球生育率崩溃?供考生参考。
2024考研英语同源外刊7月:全球生育率崩溃?
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.
自工业革命以来的大约250年里，世界人口和财富一样呈现爆炸式增长。然而，在本世纪结束前，地球上的人口数量可能会出现自黑死病以来首次减少。根本原因并非死亡人数激增，而是出生人数锐减。世界大部分地区的生育率(每名妇女平均生育的子女数量)正在急剧下降。人们对这种趋势或许并不陌生，但对其程度和后果却所知甚少。在人工智能激发一些领域乐观情绪时，婴儿荒的威胁笼罩在世界经济的未来之上。
In 2000 the world’s fertility rate was 2.7 births per woman, comfortably above the “replacement rate” of 2.1. at which a population is stable. Today it is 2.3 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 China and India, neither of which is rich but which together account for more than a third of the global population.
2000年，全球生育率为每名妇女生育2.7个孩子，稳稳大于保持人口稳定所需的“更替率”2.1个。如今生育率是2.3而且还在下降。GDP较好的15个国家的生育率都低于人口更替率。这包括美国和大部分发达国家，但也包括中国和印度——这两个国家都不是富裕国家，但加起来占了全球人口的三分之一以上。
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 folk draw on the 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.
不管一些环保人士怎么说，人口减少会带来一些问题。世界还没有接近饱和，年轻人数量减少会导致各种经济困难。一个显而易见的问题是，供养世界上领取养老金的人变得越来越困难。退休人员依赖适龄工作者的劳动产出，要么是通过国家向工作者征税来支付公共养老金，要么取出存款来购买商品和服务，或者有亲属提供无偿护理。
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.
发达国家目前大约每三个20-64岁的中青年人供养着一个65岁以上的老年人，而到2050年，这个数字将低于两个。其影响是导致更多的税收、更晚的退休年龄、更低的储蓄实际回报率，以及潜在的政府预算危机。
Younger people have more of what psychologists call “fluid intelligence”, the ability to think creatively so as to solve problems in entirely new ways. Older countries—and, it turns out, their young people—are less enterprising and less comfortable taking risks. Elderly electorates ossify politics, 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.
年轻人拥有更多心理学家所谓的 "流体智力"，即创造性思维以及用全新方式解决问题的能力。老龄化国家——事实证明，他们的年轻人——不太有进取心，也不太愿意承担风险。老年选民也使政治僵化。因为当经济增长时，老年人比年轻人受益更少，所以他们对促进增长的政策(尤其是房屋建设)并不热衷。
词汇：
1.slump
英/ slʌmp /美/ slʌmp /
v.(价格、价值、数量等)骤降，猛跌;惨败，猛跌;(因无力站立而)倒下，倚，靠;(肩或脑袋)耷拉着
n.(价格、销售额、利润等的)突然下跌;(经济的)不景气，萧条;(运动员或运动队的)低迷期
2.electorate
英/ ɪˈlektərət /美/ ɪˈlektərət /
n.全体选民;选区
3.ossify
英/ ˈɒsɪfaɪ /美/ ˈɑːsɪfaɪ /
vi.骨化;硬化;僵化
vt.使硬化;使骨化;使僵化
4.suppressing
英 [səˈpresɪŋ] 美 [səˈpresɪŋ]
adj. 制止的
v. 镇压;禁止
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