Chin与a is becoming an ageing society英语新闻.doc

中国老龄化问题的解决之道 China is becoming an ageing society. But, unlike other ageing societies such as Japan and Germany, it is getting old when its income is still relatively low. Interms of the share of old people in the population, China today looks like Japan at the end of 1980s, butin terms of per-capita gross domestic product, ithas just reached the level of Japan in the early1970s. Japan started more than 20 years ofstagnation in the early 1990s, and many people fearthat China will follow its footsteps in the next 10 to20 years. 中国正步入老龄化社会。但和日本和德国等其他老龄化社会不同，中国在收入还相对较低的时候就开始老龄化了。就老年人占总人口比例而言，当下的中国就像是上世纪80年代末的日本，但就人均国内生产总值(GDP)而言，中国才刚刚达到日本在上世纪70年代初的水平。日本在上世纪90年代初开始了持续20多年的停滞，许多人担忧中国将在接下来的10到20年里重蹈日本的覆辙。 China’s demographic structure was almost the same as India’s until late 1970s when Chinastarted to enforce a stringent family planning policy. Since then its demographic transitionhas been very abrupt. The proportion of people over 60 years old is now more than 12 percent of the population and those of working-age, between 16 and 65 years old, has begun todecline by 2.5m a year. Furthermore, labour movement from the countryside to the city,which used to be a major source of growth in China, is drying up. According to the officialnumbers, agriculture still employs 30 per cent of China’s total labour force. But mosteconomists, such as Cai Fang, one of the most prominent economists on labour issues, believethat the real number is much smaller. The average farm is tiny — only about one hectare — somost farmers have to take additional jobs outside the farming sector to sustain a decentliving. 过去中国的人口结构几乎和印度相同——直到中国在上世纪70年代后期开始推行严格的计划生育政策。其后中国的人口结构转变非常剧烈。现在60岁以上人口已经超过了总人口的12%，而劳动年龄人口，也就是16到65岁之间的人口每年下降250万人。此外，曾经推动中国经济增长的从农村到城市的劳动力流动，正在逐渐枯竭。根据官方数据，农业依然雇佣了中国30%的劳动力。但大多数经济学家（包括劳动力问题研究方面最知名的经济学家之一蔡昉）相信真正的比例要小得多。一般的农地很小，大概一公顷左右，因此大多数农民不得不在务农以外从事额外的工作，才能维持像样的生活。 The official data on urbanisation are also problematic. These figures only count people living ingovernment-designated