A guide to the new economics of fertility
In a speech to the vatican in January, Pope Francis made an observation fit for an economist. He argued that declining fertility rates might lead to a "demographic winter". In every European country the total fertility rate, the expected number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, has now fallen below 2.1, the level needed to maintain a stable population without immigration. The same is true in many developing countries, including China and (as of this year) India. This, the pope warned, would weigh on the world's economic health.
- pope: 教皇
- observation:观察、监视、观测数据
- fit for:给……量尺寸以便做……；适于，适合
- fertility:可繁殖性、想象力丰富、丰产；
- demographic:人口统计学的、（某个地方或社会的）人口统计数据、（尤指特定年龄段的）人群；
- weigh on: （使）某人焦虑；
今年1月，教皇方济各在梵蒂冈的演讲中发表了一个观点，俨如一个经济学家。他说，生育率下降可能会导致“人口寒冬”。现在每个欧洲国家的总生育率（一名妇女一生中预期生育孩子的数量）均已跌破2.1--这个数字是在不需要外来移民的情况使人口持平的最低水平。许多发展中国家也一样，包括中国和（从今年开始的）印度。教皇警告称，这将拖累世界经济的健康发展。
Economists have long considered such a slowdown inevitable. In the best-known model of fertility, popularised by Gary Becker, a Nobel-prizewinning economist, and others in the 1960s, there is a central role for the trade-off between the "quantity and quality" of children. As countries grow richer and the returns to education rise, it is expected that families will invest more in a smaller number of children. And as women's working options expand, the opportunity cost of their time will grow, making the trade-off between family and career more difficult.
- inevitable: n./adj.必然发生、不可避免的（事）；
- popularise：vt.推广、普及、使...通俗化/受欢迎；
- nobel-prizewinning:诺贝尔得奖者；
- central role: 中心作用、核心作用、关键作用；
- trade-off: n.权衡、协调；
- return：n.回报
- invest:v.投资、投入（时间精力等）、授予、给予（权力等）；
经济学家早就认为这种下滑无可避免。在诺贝尔经济学奖得主加里·贝克尔等人于1960年代提出的广为人知的生育模型中，人们对生育孩子的“数量和质量”的权衡发挥着关键作用。随着国家变得更富裕，教育的回报上升，可以想见家庭会少生孩子，但为他们投入更多资源。而随着女性就业的选择越来越多，她们的时间的机会成本会增加，令她们更难平衡家庭和事业。
Fitting this theory, many places have already gone through a "demographic transition", in which poor, high-fertility countries become rich, low-fertility ones. In some ,the transition has been so dramatic that their populations have started to decline. The number of people in Japan has fallen by about 3m since peaking at 128m in 2008. Many demographers suspect China's population is also falling, no matter what the country's official figures claim.
- dramatic:adj.戏剧性的、巨大的、突然的、给人印象深刻的；
- peaking at: 达到xx峰值；
与这套理论相印证的是，许多地方已经经历了“人口转型”， 从贫穷的高生育率国家变成了富裕的低生育率国家。一些国家的转变异常剧烈，人口数量甚至已经开始下降。日本人口在2008年达到了1.28亿的峰值，自那以来已经减少了约300万。许多人口学家猜测中国的人口也在减少，无论官方公布的数据如何。
Yet an emerging body of research suggests that fertility may go through another shift at a later stage of development. A recent review of the literature by Matthias Deopke of Northwestern Universituy and co-authors makes the case that, in rich countries, fertility may rise, or at least fall at a slower rate, if norms, policies and the market for child care make it easier for a woman to have children and a career. In countries with, say, supportive family policy or fathers who take on a greater share of child-care duties ,one would expect working women to have more children than in the past.
norm:n.标准、规范、行为标准；
supportive:adj.给予帮助的、支持的、同情的、鼓励的；
然而，一系列新研究指出，在经济发展更往后的阶段，生育率可能会经历有一次转变。西北大学的马提亚斯·德普等人在近期发表的一则文献综述中指出，在富裕国家，如果习俗、政策和市场让女性能够更容易兼顾生育和就业，那么生育率可能又会上升，或者至少下回的更慢。例如，在具有支持性家庭政策或者父亲承担更多育儿责任的国家，可以预期职业女性将比过去生育更多子女。
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