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From: D
Sent: Tue, Sep 13, 2022 3:01 pm
Subject: WSJ —— 渣共國經濟低迷之際，新出生韭菜炮灰賤奴數前景堪忧 經濟不振和新冠疫情限制措施的影响正導致大批豬共國年轻人推迟或永遠放棄结婚或產崽兒的計劃，這與渣共當局旨在提振新生韭菜炮灰賤奴數的努力背道而驰。
From: D
Sent: Tue, Sep 13, 2022 3:01 pm
Subject: WSJ —— 渣共國經濟低迷之際，新出生韭菜炮灰賤奴數前景堪忧 經濟不振和新冠疫情限制措施的影响正導致大批豬共國年轻人推迟或永遠放棄结婚或產崽兒的計劃，這與渣共當局旨在提振新生韭菜炮灰賤奴數的努力背道而驰。
渣共國經濟低迷之際，新出生韭菜炮灰賤奴數前景堪忧
經濟不振和新冠疫情限制措施的影响正導致大批豬共國年轻人推迟或永遠放棄结婚或產崽兒的計劃，這與渣共當局旨在提振新生韭菜炮灰賤奴數的努力背道而驰。
豬共國的出生韭菜炮灰賤奴數在過去的五年中已經下降。
图片来源：AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES 保存文章
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Economic malaise and the impact of Covid-19 restrictions are causing some young Chinese to postpone plans to get married or have children, running counter to Beijing's efforts to lift births.
经济不振和新冠疫情限制措施的影响正导致部分中国年轻人推迟结婚或生子的计划，这与中国政府旨在提振出生人口数的努力背道而驰。
Some demographers now see 2022 as the year that China's population starts to shrink, partly as a result of growing uncertainty among the young about how to earn a living.
一些人口学家现在认为2022年是中国人口开始萎缩的起始年份，在一定程度上是因为年轻人对如何谋生日益感到不确定。
China's demographic challenge was already dire. The number of births has declined for the past five years, last year barely outnumbering deaths.
此前中国已经面临严峻的人口挑战。过去五年的出生人口持续下降，去年仅勉强超过死亡人口数。
Data for the first half of 2022 from some provinces and cities indicate further drops in births compared with last year, as Covid restrictions have kept tens of millions of Chinese at a time cooped up in their apartments and put a wet blanket on economic activity across the country.
一些省市2022年上半年的数据显示出生人口数同比进一步下降，其背景是，抗疫限制措施导致数以千万计的中国民众被封控在家，并抑制了全国各地的经济活动。
Official data for July contained a stark data point: Among Chinese aged 24 and under, one in five was unemployed that month. Some who have lost their jobs say they have put big life plans on hold.
中国7月份公布的一份官方数据引人注目：16-24岁青年人有五分之一当月处于失业状态。一些失去工作的人表示，他们已搁置了一些重要的人生计划。
Ironically, some of the job losses were caused by Beijing's measures to make it more affordable to raise children. Crackdowns on property developers to rein in runaway housing prices and on costly private tutoring services resulted in layoffs for many who were employed in those sectors.
讽刺的是，造成部分工作岗位流失的是中国政府某些旨在降低育儿成本的举措。为抑制房价的飙涨和学科类课外培训的高成本，中国政府对房地产开发商和教培行业进行了整顿，导致这两个行业的很多从业者被裁员。
When Sandy Liu graduated from an elite Beijing university four years ago, she landed a job as an engineer at a technology company. She made plans to marry her boyfriend and buy an apartment in Beijing within the next few years.
Sandy Liu四年前从北京一所名牌大学毕业，当时她在一家科技公司找了份工程师的工作。她曾筹划在几年内与男友结婚并在北京买套房。
This summer, she was laid off. Her marriage plans are now on hold. "I can't imagine getting married and starting a family without a paycheck," said Ms. Liu.
今年夏天，Liu被解雇了。她的结婚计划现在只得暂时搁置。Liu说，她不敢想象，没有工资收入，如何结婚成家。
Emily Yu used to run a small sushi restaurant with her husband in Guangxi, a region in China's south, but rolling coronavirus lockdowns made it impossible to keep the business afloat. Ms. Yu, 31, a single child, said she had hoped her 3-year-old son could have a sibling. The family has some savings, but she is now looking for part-time work and has shelved plans for another child.
Emily Yu曾和丈夫在中国南部的广西经营一家小型寿司店，但反复的抗疫封控让这家小店无法继续经营下去。31岁的Yu是独生子女，她说，曾希望自己三岁的儿子能有个兄弟姐妹。Yu的家里有一些积蓄，但她现在正找兼职工作，并搁置了二胎计划。
"Life is just getting harder and harder," Ms. Yu said.
Yu说，日子越来越难过。
7月，中国青年失业率达到五分之一，其中一些人参加了像上个月在北京举行的这种招聘会。
图片来源：JADE GAO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES 中国2022年第一季度的结婚登记量较2021年同期有所下降。
图片来源：AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES"When economic pressure is huge and many people feel their livelihood is insecure, it's definitely going to affect people's decisions on births," said Xiujian Peng, a senior research fellow at Victoria University in Australia.
澳大利亚维多利亚大学(Victoria University)高级研究员彭秀健表示，经济压力很大、许多人感到生活没有保障时，人们的生育决定肯定会受到影响。
According to joint research by her team at the university's Centre of Policy Studies and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, an official think tank, China's population will start dropping this year. The decline is expected to accelerate in the years ahead, with the country's population falling to 587 million by 2100, less than half of the about 1.4 billion today.
根据她在维多利亚大学政策研究中心(Centre of Policy Studies)的团队与中国官方智库上海社会科学院所做的联合研究，中国的人口数量将从今年开始下降。预计未来几年人口下降速度会加快，到2100年，中国的人口料将降至5.87亿，不到当前约14亿的一半。
The team's projections were based on data including on fertility, mortality and population distribution by age and gender.
该团队的预测参照了多项数据，包括生育率、死亡率以及按年龄和性别划分的人口分布。
The United Nations' forecasts released in July predict a drop in the Chinese population in 2023, when India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country, and predict China will have 771 million people in 2100.
联合国在7月份发布的报告中预测2023年中国人口将下降，预计届时印度将超过中国成为全球人口最多的国家，联合国报告还预测到2100年时中国人口数为7.71亿。
The U.N.'s prediction assumes a fertility rate—the number of children a woman has over her lifetime—of 1.16 in 2021. China's fertility rate in 2020 came in at 1.3, below even the 1.34 that year in Japan, known for its aging society.
联合国的预测是基于中国2021年生育率为1.16的假设；生育率指的是平均每名女性一生中生育子女的总数。中国2020年的生育率为1.3，甚至低于以老龄化社会闻名的日本在2020年的1.34。
The National Health Commission didn't respond to a request for comment. The State Council, China's top government body, and the National Bureau of Statistics, which issues demographic data, also didn't respond to requests for comment.
中国国家卫健委没有回复置评请求。中国国务院和负责发布人口数据的国家统计局也没有回复置评请求。
China now allows married couples to have three children, but a legacy of the one-child policy, scrapped in 2016, is a dwindling number of women of childbearing age.
中国现行政策允许已婚夫妇生育三孩，但2016年取消的独生子女政策产生了一个遗留问题，那就是育龄女性数量日益减少。
Marriages are also down. Official data released in recent days showed that the number of marriage registrations last year plummeted to 7.6 million, the lowest since the government started keeping records in the mid-1980s. The decline was most notable among the young.
结婚人数也在下降。近日公布的官方数据显示，去年结婚登记人数骤降至约760万对，是自政府在20世纪80年代中期开始记录该数据以来的最低水平。这一下降在年轻人中最为明显。
Marriage registrations in the first quarter of this year, the latest data available, showed even lower levels than in the same period in 2021.
根据可获得的最新数据，今年第一季度的结婚登记人数甚至低于去年同期。
A 31-year-old accountant living in China's Pearl River Delta area, said that since last year, several of his friends who work in the property sector have either lost their jobs or suffered large pay cuts.
一位居住在中国珠江三角洲地区的31岁会计师说，自去年以来，他有几个在房地产行业工作的朋友要么失去了工作，要么遭大幅降薪。
He considers himself lucky to have a civil-servant job. He now wants to only date women in government jobs, to ensure any prospective marriage partner also has job security.
他认为自己很幸运有一份公务员的工作，现在也只想和从事政府工作的女性约会谈恋爱，以确保未来的结婚对象也有工作保障。
Freelance illustrator Rita Zhang in April 2021 bought an apartment with her husband as prices were rising, fearful that if they waited, it would get even more expensive. Since then home prices have slumped amid Beijing's housing crackdown and many of Ms. Zhang's clients have laid off people and trimmed their orders.
自由插画师Rita Zhang和丈夫在去年4月买了一套房，当时房价正在上涨，他们担心再不出手房价会涨得更高。但自那以来，中国的楼市调控政策导致房价大幅下跌，而且Zhang的许多客户都进行了裁员并削减了订单。
"We are struggling to pay our mortgage. We are really not confident enough about our future income to consider having children," Ms. Zhang said.
Zhang说，我们支付房贷都很难，对未来收入真的没有足够信心，没法考虑要孩子。
Difficulty in getting access to medical care amid Covid restrictions is also a big concern for Ms. Zhang. "What if I'm pregnant or I deliver the baby in the middle of a lockdown?" she said.
在新冠封控期间看病难也是Zhang非常担忧的事情。她说，如果我在封控时怀孕或者分娩怎么办？
中国为控制失控的房价而采取的措施导致一些人失去工作，并搁置了生孩子的计划。
图片来源：THOMAS PETER/REUTERSIn an incident that caused a nationwide outcry on social media early this year, a woman in Xi'an in western China lost her unborn baby in the eighth month of pregnancy after Covid restrictions prevented her from receiving medical attention, prompting authorities to publicly apologize.
今年年初在中国西部城市西安，一名怀孕八个月的女性因为封控而无法获得医疗救治，最终失去了未出生的孩子，这一事件在社交媒体上引发了全国的强烈反响，并促使有关部门公开道歉。
Chinese officials acknowledge the demographic challenges, predicting the population will start dropping during the period covering the current five-year plan, which ends in 2025.
中国官员承认在人口方面面临挑战，并预测人口将在十四五期间出现负增长。中国第十四个五年规划实施时间到2025年。
"Low births and aging amid negative population growth will become the norm," the National Health Commission wrote in an essay published on the website of the Communist Party journal Qiushi in August.
中国国家卫健委8月份在中共机关杂志《求是》网站上发表的文章中称，人口负增长下，少子老龄化将成为常态。
Computer modeling by the Victoria University team suggests that without changes to China's mandatory retirement ages, its pension payments will increase to 20% of gross domestic product in 2100 from 4% in 2020. Men in China generally retire at age 60 and women in some categories as early as 50.
维多利亚大学研究团队的计算机建模显示，如果不改变中国的法定退休年龄，2100年中国的退休金支出与国内生产总值(GDP)的比值将从2020年的4%提高到20%。中国男性一般在60岁退休，某些领域的女性甚至早在50岁就退休了。
一些工作岗位的流失是由于北京采取了降低养育成本的措施。
图片来源：MARK R. CRISTINO/SHUTTERSTOCK 新冠封控措施导致数以千万计的中国人同时被封控在家中，许多人需要包裹配送。
图片来源：KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGESIn the coastal city of Ningbo, births dropped nearly 11% in the first half of the year from a year earlier, while Dezhou, a city in eastern China, reported a 9% on-year decline in the number of newborns. Both cities have endured rounds of partial Covid lockdowns over the past two years.
在沿海城市宁波，今年上半年的出生人数比上年同期下降了近11%，而同期中国东部城市德州的新生儿数量同比下降了9%。在过去两年中，这两个城市都经历了几轮针对新冠疫情的部分封控。
"The zero-Covid policy is like adding frost to snow, worsening a trend of declining births," said Yi Fuxian, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who believes that China's population has been shrinking for several years already.
威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校(University of Wisconsin-Madison)的科学家易富贤说，动态清零政策无异于雪上加霜，加剧了出生人口下降的趋势。他认为中国人口萎缩已有数年了。
He estimates that China's Covid-prevention measures, which he says contributed to a sharp drop in marriages in 2020 and 2021, will cause a reduction in births by about one million over the course of 2021 and 2022.
他估计中国的新冠防控措施在2021年和2022年将导致出生人口减少约100万人。他称封控促使2020年和2021年结婚人数大幅下降。
Yuwa Population Research, a group of half a dozen Chinese demographers and economists, earlier this year also forecast a population decline starting in 2022. The group projected the Chinese population will shrink to 685 million by 2100. He Yafu, a demographer affiliated with the think tank, cited the economic slowdown and Covid controls as factors speeding up the drop.
由六名中国人口学家和经济学家组成的育娲人口研究(Yuwa Population Research)今年早些时候也预测，中国人口将从2022年开始减少。该组织预计，到2100年，中国人口将减少到6.85亿。该智库的人口统计学家何亚福指出，经济放缓和新冠封控是加速人口减少的因素。
Beijing last month allowed single women to receive funds to cover some expenses during maternity leave. In the past, a marriage license was required to get access to such funds, and the move was seen by some analysts as a sign Beijing is becoming more tolerant of even unmarried people having children.
上个月，中国允许未婚生育女性领取生育津贴。过去领取这类补贴需要有结婚证。一些分析人士认为，此举表明，即使对于未婚生育，中国政府也越来越宽容。
注：中文译文更新较英文原文有所延迟，因而中英对照版本有可能出现部分不一致的情况。
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