?自考英語二（下）課文翻譯之unit9

自考英語二（下）課文翻譯之unit9

Unit Nine

Aging in European Countries

歐洲國家的年齡老化問題

We have to realise how old , how very old , we are . Nations are classified as “aged” when they have 7 per cent or more of their people aged 65 or above, and by about 1970 every one of the advanced countries had become like this. Of the really ancient societies, with over 13 per cent above 65, all are in Northwestern Europe. At the beginning of the I980's East Germany had 15.6 per cent, Austria, Sweden, West Germany and France had 13.4 per cent or above, and England and Wales 13.3 per cent. Scotland had 12.3 per cent. Northern Ireland 10.8 per cent and the United States 9.9 per cent. We know that we are getting even older, and that the nearer a society approximates to zero population growth, the older its population is likely to be — at least, for any future that concerns us now.

我們必須認識到我們有多老了。 當一個國家人口中有 7%或以上的人滿 65 歲或超過 65 歲時，就被列為“老齡國” ，而大約在 1970 年前，每一個先進國家就已步人這個行列了。在真正的老齡社會中，有13%以下的人超過 65 歲的國家全部分布在西北歐。在 20 世紀 80 年代初，一些國家(或地區(qū))人口超過65 歲的比例如下：東德 15.6%，奧地利、瑞典、西德和法國13.4%或超過 13.4%，英格蘭和威爾 13.3%，蘇格蘭 12.3%a，北愛爾蘭 10.8%，美國 9.9%。我們知道我們的社會正在變得更老， 一個社會的人口增長率越接近零， 它的人口就可能越老齡——至少對任何能關系到我們現(xiàn)在的未來是這樣的。

To these now familiar facts a number of further facts may be added,some of them only recently recognised. There is the apparent paradox that the effective cause of the high proportion of the old is births rather than deaths. There is the economic principle that the dependency ratio— the degree to which those who cannot earn depend for a living on those who can — is more advantageous in older societies like ours than in the younger societies of the developing world, because lots of dependent babies are more of a liability than numbers of the inactive aged. There is the appreciation of the salient historical truth that the aging of advanced societies has been a sudden change.

除了這些我們現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)熟知的事實外， 還有更多的事實可以補充， 而其中一些還是最近才被我們認識到的。 有這樣一個明顯的、 似非而是的論點： 造成老年人高比例的實際原因是出生人數(shù)而不是死亡人數(shù)。有這樣一條經(jīng)濟原則： 扶養(yǎng)率——即不能掙錢生活的人依賴能掙錢養(yǎng)家的人的程度——在我們這樣老齡化社會里比發(fā)展中世界的較年輕社會里要有利一些，因為大量尚需扶養(yǎng)的孩子與一定數(shù)量不能工作的老年人相比， 更是一個負擔。 人們已認識到這樣一個突出歷史事實：先進社會的老齡化都是一種突變。

If "revolution" is a rapid resettlement of the social structure,and if the age composition of the society counts as a very important aspect of that social structure, then there has been a social revolution in European and particularly Western European society within the lifetime of everyone over 50. Taken together,these things have implications which are only beginning to be acknowledged. These facts and circumstances were well to the fore earlier this year at a world gathering about aging as a challenge to science and to policy, held at Vichy in France.

如果“革命”是對社會結構的迅速重建， 如果社會的年齡構成被看作是社會結構的一個非常重要的方面，那么在歐洲尤其是在西歐社會里，每個超過50 歲的人一生中就已經(jīng)歷過一次社會革命了。綜合起來，這些事情牽連出的結果剛開始被人們認識。這些事實和情況今年早些時候在法國維希舉行的一個世界大會上被視為對科學和政策的挑戰(zhàn)而置于顯著地位。

There is often resistance to the idea that it is because the birthrate fell earlier in Western and Northwestern Europe than elsewhere, rather than because of any change in the death rate, that we have grown so old. But this is what elementary demography makes clear. Long life is altering our society, of course, but in experiential terms. We have among us a very much greater experience of continued living than any society that has ever preceded us anywhere, and this will continue. But too much of that lengthened experience, even in the wealthy West, will be experience of poverty and neglect, unless we do something about it.

這種觀點常遇到反對意見， 即正因為西歐和西北歐出生率比別的地區(qū)下降得早，而不是因為死亡率方面的任何變化， 所以我們的社會才變得如此老齡但初級人口統(tǒng)計學已經(jīng)把這個問題解釋清楚了。當然長壽正改變我們的社會， 但這是根據(jù)經(jīng)驗而來的說法。 我們比以前任何一個社會更經(jīng)歷著長壽， 這種情況還將繼續(xù)下去。但過度的長壽，即便是在富裕的西方，也會遭受貧窮和忽視，除非我們采取一些辦法。

If you are now in your thirties, you ought to be aware that you can expect to live nearly one third of the rest of your life after the age of 60. The older you are now , of course, the greater this proportion will be, and greater still if you are a woman. Expectation of life is a slippery figure, very easy to get wrong at the highest ages. At Vichy the demographers were telling each other that their estimates of how many old there would be and how long they will live in countries like England and Wales are due for revision upwards.

如果你現(xiàn)在 30 多歲，你應當知道你可以期望活到60 歲后再活上剩余生命的三分之一。當然，你現(xiàn)在年齡越大，這種比例就越高，如果你是女人，這比例還應該更高。 人生的估計壽命是一個飄忽不定的數(shù)字，年齡越大越容易有誤差。 在維希，人口學家們互相轉告， 他們對一些地方人口情況的估計， 如英格蘭和威爾上將有多少老年人， 這些老人的壽命如何， 注定要進行修改， 因為這些數(shù)字一直呈上升趨勢。

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