中國網(wǎng)站品牌欄目（頻道）
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 There is increased pressure on women to be breadwinners and too often they have to postpone families or lose the opportunity to have children. |
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Childlessness has reached record levels among a generation of women wrestling with the pressures of careers, mortgages and rocky relationships. One in five women are now reaching middle age without having had children, new official figures showed today. The proportion of women who go without having a family has reached historic levels last seen in the generation born just after the First World War, whose peak childbearing years coincided with times of depression, another world war, and post-war austerity. Now, analysts said, many women have chosen to put family second to careers that would have been out of reach of their mothers and grandmothers. Others have delayed having children for too long either because they cannot face the high costs or because they are uncertain about the commitment of live-in male partners. The figures from the Office for National Statistics, prepared from birth registration records and large-scale household surveys covering many years, showed that one in five of the generation of women born in 1964 have not had children. The 1964 generation have now reached the age of 46, at which they are officially counted as having completed their childbearing. The 20 percent childlessness rate has been matched only by women born in 1920, who were teenagers during the depression of the Thirties, reached adulthood during World War Two when many men were away fighting and high numbers were killed, and who were 30 by the end of the austerity years that followed the war. Women born later were part of the generation of baby-boomers whose birthrates reached record levels during the Fifties and Sixties. Only one in ten women born in 1945 was childless. The ONS analysis said that 'the level of childlessness for women born in 1964 is at a 44-year high and comparable with that of women born in 1920. On average, each woman who reached the age of 45 last year had 1.9 children, compared with 2.4 on average for their own mothers - the generation born in 1937. Jill Kirby, director of the centre right think tank Centre for Policy Studies, said: 'There is increased pressure on women to be breadwinners and too often they have either had to postpone families or, sometimes, lose the opportunity to have children.' (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Web site.) (Agencies) |
這一代女性不僅要與事業(yè)、房貸和不穩(wěn)定的情感關(guān)系等多重壓力做斗爭，她們無子女的比例也達到了有史以來的最高水平。 今天新發(fā)布的官方數(shù)據(jù)顯示，五分之一英國女性現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)人到中年，卻依然沒有孩子。 未成家女性的比例曾經(jīng)在一戰(zhàn)后達到歷史最高點，因為一戰(zhàn)后出生的那一代女性的生育高峰期正好趕上大蕭條時期、又一場世界大戰(zhàn)和戰(zhàn)后的艱苦歲月。 分析家稱，如今，許多女性優(yōu)先選擇了事業(yè)，讓家庭退居二位，而且，她們所從事的職業(yè)在她們的母親和祖母所處的年代是女性無法企及的。 許多其他女性一直延后生育計劃是因為她們無法面對高額開支，或是因為她們不能確定同居男性伴侶的忠誠度。 來自英國國家統(tǒng)計局的數(shù)據(jù)表明，1964年出生的這一代女性有五分之一都沒有生育經(jīng)歷。這些數(shù)據(jù)來自統(tǒng)計局的出生登記記錄和開展了許多年的大規(guī)模的家庭調(diào)查。 1964年出生的一代如今已經(jīng)46歲了，官方認(rèn)為她們已經(jīng)過了生育的年齡。 無子女的比率同樣高達20%的只有1920年出生的女性。那一代在上世紀(jì)30年代的大蕭條時期是青少年，剛成年時趕上二戰(zhàn)，許多男性都去參加戰(zhàn)斗，有一大批人在戰(zhàn)爭中喪生，在戰(zhàn)后的艱苦時期結(jié)束時她們已經(jīng)30歲了。 稍后出生的女性屬于嬰兒潮的一代，出生率在50年代和60年代達到了一個歷史高峰。1945年出生的女性只有十分之一是沒有孩子的。 國家統(tǒng)計局的分析報告稱“1964年出生的女性的無子女率達到了44年以來的最高水平，和1920年出生的女性的無子女率持平”。 去年每位滿45歲的女性平均生育孩子1.9個，而她們的母親——1937年出生的一代平均生育孩子2.4個。 政策研究中心的主任吉爾?柯比說：“女性賺錢養(yǎng)家的壓力增大了，她們經(jīng)常被迫推遲生育計劃，有時甚至錯過了懷孕的機會。”政策研究中心是一個中間偏右立場的智囊團。 相關(guān)閱讀 調(diào)查：3/4法國人認(rèn)為女性生活質(zhì)量不及男性 （中國日報網(wǎng)英語點津 陳丹妮 編輯：馮明惠） |
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Vocabulary: wrestle with: 與……做斗爭 rocky: difficult and not certain to continue or to be successful（困難的；難以維持的；不穩(wěn)定的） austerity: a situation when people do not have much money to spend because there are bad economic conditions （經(jīng)濟的）緊縮；嚴(yán)格節(jié)制消費 live-in: a person who lives with their sexual partner but is not married to them （未婚同居者） |
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