​自考英语二（下）课文翻译之unit9

自考英语二（下）课文翻译之unit9

Unit Nine

Aging in European Countries

欧洲国家的年龄老化问题

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.

我们必须认识到我们有多老了。 当一个国家人口中有 7%或以上的人满 65 岁或超过 65 岁时，就被列为“老龄国” ，而大约在 1970 年前，每一个先进国家就已步人这个行列了。在真正的老龄社会中，有13%以下的人超过 65 岁的国家全部分布在西北欧。在 20 世纪 80 年代初，一些国家(或地区)人口超过65 岁的比例如下：东德 15.6%，奥地利、瑞典、西德和法国13.4%或超过 13.4%，英格兰和威尔 13.3%，苏格兰 12.3%a，北爱尔兰 10.8%，美国 9.9%。我们知道我们的社会正在变得更老， 一个社会的人口增长率越接近零， 它的人口就可能越老龄——至少对任何能关系到我们现在的未来是这样的。

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.

除了这些我们现在已经熟知的事实外， 还有更多的事实可以补充， 而其中一些还是最近才被我们认识到的。 有这样一个明显的、 似非而是的论点： 造成老年人高比例的实际原因是出生人数而不是死亡人数。有这样一条经济原则： 扶养率——即不能挣钱生活的人依赖能挣钱养家的人的程度——在我们这样老龄化社会里比发展中世界的较年轻社会里要有利一些，因为大量尚需扶养的孩子与一定数量不能工作的老年人相比， 更是一个负担。 人们已认识到这样一个突出历史事实：先进社会的老龄化都是一种突变。

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”是对社会结构的迅速重建， 如果社会的年龄构成被看作是社会结构的一个非常重要的方面，那么在欧洲尤其是在西欧社会里，每个超过50 岁的人一生中就已经历过一次社会革命了。综合起来，这些事情牵连出的结果刚开始被人们认识。这些事实和情况今年早些时候在法国维希举行的一个世界大会上被视为对科学和政策的挑战而置于显著地位。

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.

这种观点常遇到反对意见， 即正因为西欧和西北欧出生率比别的地区下降得早，而不是因为死亡率方面的任何变化， 所以我们的社会才变得如此老龄但初级人口统计学已经把这个问题解释清楚了。当然长寿正改变我们的社会， 但这是根据经验而来的说法。 我们比以前任何一个社会更经历着长寿， 这种情况还将继续下去。但过度的长寿，即便是在富裕的西方，也会遭受贫穷和忽视，除非我们采取一些办法。

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.

如果你现在 30 多岁，你应当知道你可以期望活到60 岁后再活上剩余生命的三分之一。当然，你现在年龄越大，这种比例就越高，如果你是女人，这比例还应该更高。 人生的估计寿命是一个飘忽不定的数字，年龄越大越容易有误差。 在维希，人口学家们互相转告， 他们对一些地方人口情况的估计， 如英格兰和威尔上将有多少老年人， 这些老人的寿命如何， 注定要进行修改， 因为这些数字一直呈上升趋势。

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