首页
登录
职称英语
(1) Family planning has been a huge success. The global fertility rate has c
(1) Family planning has been a huge success. The global fertility rate has c
游客
2024-08-24
54
管理
问题
(1) Family planning has been a huge success. The global fertility rate has crashed, from 5.1 babies per woman in 1964 to 2.5 today. The average Bangladeshi woman can now expect to have about the same number of children as the average French woman. Only in sub-Saharan Africa are big families still in vogue, and even there they are shrinking. This is welcome. It suggests that women have gained more control over their bodies and that parents no longer reproduce frantically for fear that some of their children will die. Cutting the birth rate also leaves countries with fewer dependants per worker, at least for a time, making them better off.
(2) But this triumph conceals a growing problem. For more and more couples, the greatest source of anguish is that they have fewer children than they want, or none at all. With GlobeScan, a consultancy, The Economist polled 19 countries, asking people how many children they would like and how many they expect to have. In every rich country we surveyed, couples expect to be less fertile than they would like, and many in developing countries suffer the same sorrow. On average, Greeks think the ideal family contains 2.6 children but believe they will end up with 1.7.
(3) Medical infertility is part of the problem, not just in rich countries, where couples put off having children until it is rather late, but also in poor countries, where health care is worse. By one global estimate, at least 48m couples have been trying for a child for the past five years but have not succeeded. But the main reason for the shortfall, according to our poll, is money. From Brooklyn to Beijing, the cost of housing and education is so high that many young people say they cannot afford as many children as they want.
(4) Malthusians (马尔萨斯人口控制论者) will rejoice. The population is growing fast enough already, they will argue. Besides, can’t infertile couples just adopt children? In fact, population growth today largely reflects longer lives and will eventually go into reverse. It is not clear that there are too many people; and it is callous to ask couples who might want children to forgo that joy simply because some of their neighbours would prefer a less populous planet. And adoption, though admirable, is neither the sole responsibility of the childless nor a perfect substitute for procreation.
(5) The pain of having no or fewer children than you desire is often extreme. It can cause depression and in poor countries can be a social catastrophe. Couples impoverish themselves pursuing ineffective treatments; women who are thought to be barren are divorced, ostracised or worse. Last month a childless Kenyan tailor was charged with attempted murder, having allegedly attacked his wife with a machete.
(6) In wealthy countries, where maternity wards are quiet partly because the young are so economically insecure, governments can help by doing things they should be doing anyway: liberalising labour markets that shut the young out of jobs, relaxing planning rules to make housing cheaper and promoting child-friendly policies in the workplace. Across the world, education is important, both to warn women about how fertility declines with age and, especially in Africa, about preventable infections such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea.
(7) Most important, however, is medical innovation. In vitro fertilisation (体外受精) has become better over the years but is still horribly expensive. Some couples remortgage their homes in the hope of conceiving. Research into more frugal technology is staggeringly rare, given the demand for it. Would lower, cheaper doses of IVF drugs work as well for some people? No one knows. Will a shoe-box-sized IVF laboratory developed in America work reliably? Trials are only now under way.
(8) More money for research would help, as it generally does. But perhaps not as much as more attention. Governments and aid agencies have turned family planning into a wholly one-sided campaign, dedicated to minimising teenage pregnancies and unwanted births; it has come to mean family restriction. Instead, family planning ought to mean helping people to have as many, or as few, children as they want. (本文选自 The Economist) [br] What’s the main reason for the worldwide decrease of birth rate?
选项
A、The medical infertility.
B、The economic insecurity.
C、The housing problem.
D、The governmental policy.
答案
B
解析
细节题。原文第三段第三句表明,全球婴儿出生率降低最主要的原因是经济压力,故B为答案。在第三段中提及A,但只是部分原因而不是主要原因,因此排除;C是经济压力的具体表现之一,故排除;文中未提及D,故排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3733228.html
相关试题推荐
(1)Longknownasatelecommunications-equipmentsuppliertoglobalcarriers
Ourfamilydoctor’sclinic________atthejunctionoftwobusyroads.A、restsB、st
[originaltext]W:Hey,Robert.Lookslikeyou’replanningondoingsomegolfing.
[originaltext]W:Hey,Robert.Lookslikeyou’replanningondoingsomegolfing.
Thepresidentofthecollege,togetherwiththedeans,________planningaconfer
Theboysinthefamilyareoldenoughfor________.A、schoolsB、schoolC、theschoo
Thereisnoquestionofsuccess.Theunderlinedwordmeans________.A、possibility
(1)NearusonourstreettherewasafamilywithagirlmyagecalledSafin
(1)NearusonourstreettherewasafamilywithagirlmyagecalledSafin
(1)NearusonourstreettherewasafamilywithagirlmyagecalledSafin
随机试题
Oneanalystoftheliquorindustryestimatedthatthisyearafewliquorstores
Somescientistsarethinkingtwiceaboutdoingorreportingcertainresearc
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteashortessayentitledSh
Almost150yearsafterphotovoltaic(光电的)cellsandwindturbines(涡轮机)w
随着我国建筑市场的健康发展,建筑行业已经成为我国经济发展的支柱产业,建筑安全生产
证券公司、证券投资咨询机构可以通过( )等公众媒体对证券投资顾问业务进行广告宣
()是指基金从业人员不应泄露或者披露客户和所属机构或者相关基金机构向其传达的信
X线检查肺动脉高压表现是A.右下肺动脉干扩张 B.双肺纹理增多 C.右心室肥
下列关于本公文标题的说法,错误的是:() A.公文标题中的书名号使用有误,
为证明借款人的偿贷能力,银行可接受的收入或财产证明有()。A:过去3个月的工资单
最新回复
(
0
)