2. 职称英语
  3. Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever

Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever

游客2023-08-15  35
问题     Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment mere widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future of work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should we not rather encourage many other ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centers of production and work?
    The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people’s work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be coming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought may have to be reversed. This seems a daunting thought. But, in fact, it could offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom.
    Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17 th and 18 th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people’s homes. Later, as transport improved, first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people’s work lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they lived.
    Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In pre-industrial times, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and the family to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today, and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes.
    It was not only women whose work status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were excluded—a problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives.
    All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the Utopian goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full-time jobs. [br] What can be inferred from the passage?
选项 A、Women could have been more productive than men in a proper job system.
B、Work in pre-industrial times has been distributed evenly between men and women.
C、Paid employment has aroused serious social problems in current society.
D、Women have been treated unfairly under the employment system of industrial age.
答案 D
解析 根据题干中的关键词inferred，passage，以及选项中的men，women将本题定位于第4段。该段首句指出，工业时代的就业模式使女性处于不利地位，接着就这一主题进行论述，在第3句指出，现在，普遍的情况变成了丈夫出去工作赚钱，然后把没有报酬的家务活和照顾家庭的任务留给妻子。由此可见，工业时代的就业模式未能公平地对待妇女。故答案为D(在工业时代的就业体系下，妇女受到了不公正待遇)。
转载请注明原文地址:http://tihaiku.com/zcyy/2928520.html
相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)