摘要：大家都知道，《经济学人》中的文章一直很受考研英语出题人喜欢，频频出现在历年的考研英语阅读理解试题中。所以，各位考研的小伙伴们可以提早看看经济学中的文章。

　　Social change

　　社会的改变

　　The weaker sex

　　弱男子

　　Blue-collar men in rich countries are in trouble. Theymust learn to adapt

　　在发达国家的蓝领男性群体正处于困境中，他们必须学会适应。

　　AT FIRST glance the patriarchy appears to be thriving. More than 90% of presidents andprime ministers are male, as are nearly all big corporate bosses. Men dominate finance,technology, films, sports, music and even stand-up comedy. In much of the world they stillenjoysocial and legal privileges simply because they have a Y chromosome. So it might seemodd to worry about the plight of men.

　　父系社会现在咋一看似乎正兴盛。超过90%的国家总统总理，和几乎所有大型公司的大boss都是男性。男性统治着经济，科技，企业，体育，音乐，甚至连说相声的都基本是男的。在大多数国家里男人仅仅因为拥有一条Y染色体便享有在社会和法律上的特权，这样看来，担心男性的“悲催命运”般的困境似乎是在杞人忧天。

　　Yet there is plenty of cause for concern. Men cluster at the bottom as well as the top. They arefar more likely than women to be jailed, estranged from their children, or to kill themselves.They earn fewer university degrees than women. Boys in the developed world are 50% morelikely to flunk basic maths, reading and science entirely.

　　但有却又大量的原由让人不得不担心。男性群体从渣男到精英男，他们在被关进监狱啊，被他们的孩子疏远嫌弃啊，或者自杀率啊都远远大于女性，却在取得更多的大学学位上败给了女性。在发达国家中，有50%左右的男孩会在基础数学，阅读和科学学科上挂掉。

　　One group in particular is suffering. Poorly educated men in rich countries have had difficultycoping with the enormous changes in the labour market and the home over the past half-century. As technology and trade have devalued brawn, less-educated men have struggled tofind a role in the workplace. Women, on the other hand, are surging into expanding sectorssuch as health care and education, helped by their superior skills. As education has becomemore important, boys have also fallen behind girls in school (except at the very top). Men wholose jobs in manufacturing often never work again. And men without work find it hard to attracta permanent mate. The result, for low-skilled men, is a poisonous combination of no job, nofamily and no prospects.

　　在男性群体中又有一类人尤其遭罪。在过去的半个世纪里，发达国家里的受教育程度低的男性已经非常难应对发生了巨变的劳工市场和家庭。现代技术革新和贸易已经使原先的靠劳力形式的肌肉男的价值直线下降，缺少教育的男性，不得不在职场中苦苦挣扎，才能博得一席之地。相反的，女性却依靠着自身出众的技能，在像医疗卫生和教育这样的领域里大放异彩。教育已经变成更重要的事情，而男孩却学校里被女孩甩在了身后(尖端领域学科除外)。从工厂失业的男性常从此不再去工作。而没有工作的男性会发现去吸引永久的伴侣是件非常难的事。由此导致低技术的男性被无工作，无家庭，无前景的“三无”剧毒环环围住。

　　From nuclear families to fissile ones

　　从核心家庭到易碎家庭

　　Those on the political left tend to focus on economics. Shrinking job opportunities for men,they say, are entrenching poverty and destroying families. In America pay for men with only ahigh-school certificate fell by 21% in real terms between 1979 and 2013; for women with similarqualifications it rose by 3%. Around a fifth of working-age American men with only a high-school diploma have no job.

　　支持左翼 的人倾向于专注于经济，他们认为减少男性工作的机会会加剧贫穷，并，并摧毁家庭。在美国，只有高中学历的男性的实际收入，从1979年到2013年减低了21%，而同等学历的女性，在此期间的实际收入却提高了3%。约有5分之一的只有高中学历的处在工作适龄的男性，处在失业中。

　　Those on the right worry about the collapse of the family. The vast majority of women wouldprefer to have a partner who does his bit both financially and domestically. But they wouldrather do without one than team up with a layabout, which may be all that is on offer: Americanmen without jobs spend only half as much time on housework and caring for others as dowomen in the same situation, and much more time watching television.

　　支持右翼的人担心着家庭的崩溃。绝大多数的女性倾向于和愿兼顾家里财政收入职能和家务劳动职能的男性成为两口子。她们宁愿单身也不愿随便和一个游手好闲的卢瑟勉强过一辈子，而这是有依据的：美国失业男性仅仅只付出同等条件下失业女性的一半的时间来做家务事和照顾彼此的生活，这些男人会花更多的时间来看电视。

　　Hence the unravelling of working-class families. The two-parent family, still the norm among theelite, is vanishing among the poor. In rich countries the proportion of births outside marriagehas trebled since 1980, to 33%. In some areas where traditional manufacturing has collapsed,it has reached 70% or more. Children raised in broken homes learn less at school, are morelikely to drop out and earn less later on than children from intact ones. They are also not verygood at forming stable families of their own.

　　因此工人阶级的家庭变的更易解体。双亲家庭这种形式还是精英阶层的标配，而这种家庭形式却在穷人中正在消失。在发达国家，非婚生子占新生儿的比重比1980年高出了3倍，已经达到了33%。而在一些传统制造业崩坏的地区，这一比例达到70%甚至更高。生活在破碎家庭里的孩子比起一般家庭的孩子而言，在学校里会学的更少，更可能辍学和收入较低。同时，因为不善于处理家庭问题，他们自己日后的家庭也趋于不稳定(简言之单亲家庭的孩子长大后更易于组成新的单亲家庭)。

　　These two sides often talk past each other. But their explanations are not contradictory: botheconomics and social change are to blame, and the two causes reinforce each other.Moreover, these problems are likely to get worse. Technology will disrupt more industries,creating benefits for society but rendering workers who fail to update their skills redundant.The OECD, a think-tank, predicts that the absolute number of single-parent households willcontinue to rise in nearly all rich countries. Boys who grow up without fathers are more likely tohave trouble forming lasting relationships, creating a cycle of male dysfunction.

　　这两种政治倾向的讨论话题往往会相互交叉重叠。但二者的观点却并不矛盾：经济状况和社会这二者的变革都是造成此类现状的原因，而这二者还互为因果，形成恶性循环。此外，这些问题可能变得更糟。科技将瓦解更多的行业，为社会创造更多的价值，但也将使更多的无法升级自身技能的劳动者失业。 经济合作与发展组织里的一个诸葛天团预测单亲家庭的比例定会继续在所有发达国家中上升。在没有父性角色的家庭长大的男孩，将更可能不能处理好长久关系(如夫妻关系)以至于形成新的单亲家庭，由此形成一个男性功能紊乱的死循环。

　　Tinker, tailor, soldier, hairdresser

　　锅匠，裁缝，士兵和美发师

　　What can be done? Part of the solution lies in a change in cultural attitudes. Over the pastgeneration, middle-class men have learned that they need to help with child care, and havechanged their behaviour. Working-class men need to catch up. Women have learned that theycan be surgeons and physicists without losing their femininity. Men need to understand thattraditional manual jobs are not coming back, and that they can be nurses or hairdresserswithout losing their masculinity.

　　那么问题来了，我们能做什么呢?其一在于改变文化态度。在过去的一代，中产阶层的男士知晓了他们需要帮忙照看小孩，并由此改变了他们的行为。工人阶层的男士们需要加紧脚步赶上来了。女士知晓了她们可以成为外科医师和物理学家而不失其女性魅力。男人们需要明白传统的体力工作一去不复返，他们可以成为护士或美发师而不失其男性霸气侧漏之美。

　　Policymakers also need to lend a hand, because foolish laws are making the problem worse.America reduces the supply of marriageable men by locking up millions of young males for non-violent offences and then making it hard for them to find work when they get out (in Georgia,for example, felons are barred from feeding pigs, fighting fires or working in funeral homes). Anumber of rich countries discourage poor people from marrying or cohabiting by cutting theirbenefits if they do.

　　政府决策人也需搭把手，因为愚蠢的法令会令问题变得更糟。美国减少了对被关押的以百万数计的非暴力犯罪的处于适婚年龄的年轻男子的支持，并在他们出狱后找工作这种事上还要制绊脚石造(以乔治亚州为例，罪犯被禁止从事养猪，救火或在殡葬馆工作)。在一些发达国家，为了阻止穷人结婚或者同居这一目的，通过如果他们这么干的话就砍掉他们的福利这种手段来达到。

　　Even more important than scrapping foolish policies is retooling the educational system, whichwas designed in an age when most men worked with their muscles. Politicians need to recognisethat boys'underachievement is a serious problem, and set about fixing it. Some sensiblepolicies that are good for everybody are particularly good for boys. Early-childhood educationprovides boys with more structure and a better chance of developing verbal and social skills.Countries with successful vocational systems such as Germany have done a better job thanAnglo-Saxon countries of motivating non-academic boys and guiding them into jobs, butpolicymakers need to reinvent vocational education for an age when trainees are more likely toget jobs in hospitals than factories.

　　不过比起废弃愚蠢的政策，改革设计于大多数男人都是用肌肉(而非脑)工作的年代的教育系统显得更为重要。政治家门应该意识到男孩们的学习成绩不良师一个很严峻的问题，并应立足于改善之。一些明智的政策是为每个人都好，特别是对男孩。早期儿童教育会提供男孩们更系统并更能更好的发展他们的口语能力和社会技能。有着成功的职业教育系统的国家如德国，在鼓励男孩去学术化，重职业化，并指导他们工作上，已经做的比起盎格鲁-撒克逊国家而言要好的多了。但政策制定者应将恢复职业教育的重心放在使受训者更倾向于日后在医院工作而不是在工厂工作这种时代要求上。

　　More generally, schools need to become more boy-friendly. They should recognise that boys liketo rush around more than girls do: it’s better to give them lots of organised sports andenergy-eating games than to dose them with Ritalin or tell them off for fidgeting. They need toprovide more male role models: employing more male teachers in primary schools will bothsupply boys with a male to whom they can relate and demonstrate that men can be teachersas well as firefighters.

　　更广泛而言，学校需要变得更亲男孩化一些。他们应该意识到男孩比起女孩而言就是会更可能到处闯祸：比起给他们吃药或告诫他们不要乱动而言，最好还是提供给他们一些有组织的运动和耗费精力的游戏。他们需要男性榜样角色：在小学阶段，雇佣更多的男性教师，这不但可以给男孩子提供他们可以认同的男性角色，还可以为男人可以像成为消防员一样的成为教师提供实证。

　　The growing equality of the sexes is one of the biggest achievements of the post-war era:people have greater opportunities than ever before to achieve their ambitions regardless oftheir gender. But some men have failed to cope with this new world. It is time to give them ahand.

　　男女越来越平等是战后我们取得的重大成就之一：比起以前，现今人们不论性别都可以拥有更好的机会去实现他们的梦想。但是一些男士未能适应这个新的世界，是时候对他们伸出援手了。

　　【重点讲解】

　　1、learn to 得知;学会

　　例句:Eventually, you'll learn to cry that on theinside.

　　终有一天，你会学会让泪往心里流。

　　2、appear to 似乎;好像

　　例句:By all accounts, Rodger would appear to be afine fellow.

　　据说，罗杰是个好小伙。

　　3、plenty of 许多;大量的

　　例句:There were plenty of servants to wait on her.

　　有很多仆人服侍她。

　　4、likely to 倾向于;可能要

　　例句:The fires are likely to permanently deforest the land.

　　这些火灾很可能会彻底毁掉这片土地上的森林。