特别广播英语第 169 课：Aging in European Countries 欧洲国家的老龄化-1

We have to realise how old, how very old, we are. Nations are classified as "aged" when they have 7 per cent or more of their people aged 65 or above, and by about 1970 every one of the advanced countries had become like this. 我们不得不认识到我们多大岁数了，有多老了。当有7％或更多的65岁或65岁以上的人时，这些国家就被列为"老龄化"国家。到大约1970年，每一个发展国家就成了这样的国家。

Of the really ancient societies, with over 13 per cent above 65, all are in Northwestern Europe. 65岁以上的人超过13％的真正的老年人社会，都在西北欧。

At the beginning of the 1980's East Germany had 15.6 per cent, Austria, Sweden, West Germany and France had 13.4 per cent or above, and England and Wales 13.3 per cent. Scotland had 12.3 per cent. Northern Ireland 10.8 percent and the United States 9.9 per cent. 20世纪80年代初，东德有15.6％的人超过65岁，在奥地利、瑞典、西德和法国，这个比率为13.4%或更高，英格兰和威尔士有13.3%，苏格兰有12.3%，北爱尔兰有10.8％，美国有9.9%。

We know that we are getting even older, and that the nearer a society approximates to zero population growth, the older its population is likely to be - at least, for any future that concerns us now. 我们知道人类在日益变老，人口增长率接近于零的社会离我们越近，人口越可能呈老龄化的趋势，至少就与影响我们的未来来说是这样的。

To these now familiar facts a number of further facts may be added, some of them only recently recognised. 更多的现实，这其中有些只是近来才认识到，可能会加入到这些熟悉的现实中。

There is the apparent paradox that the effective cause of the high proportion of the old is births rather than deaths. 有这样一个明显的似是而非的论点：造成老年人比率高的实际原因是出生人数而不是死亡人数。

There is the economic principle that the dependency ratio - the degree to which those who cannot earn depend for a living on those who can - is more advantageous in older societies like ours than in the younger societies of the developing world, because lots of dependent babies are more of a liability than numbers of the inactive aged. 有一条经济原则：抚养率――不能自食其力的人依靠能挣钱养家的人的程度――在我们这样的更为老龄化的社会里比在发展中世界的较年轻社会里要有利一些，因为大量的无法独立的孩子与一定数的丧失工作能力的老年人相比，更是个负担。

There is the appreciation of the salient historical truth that the aging or advanced societies has been a sudden change. 有对这样一个明显的历史真实的正确评价：先进社会的老龄化一直以来都是一种突变。

If "revolution" is a rapid resettlement of the social structure, and if the age composition of the society counts as a very important aspect of that social structure, then there has been a social revolution in European and particularly Western European society within the lifetime of everyone over 50. 如果"革命"是对社会结构的迅速重建，如果社会的年龄构成被看作社会结构的一个非常重要的方面，那么在欧洲，特别是每一个人的寿命超过50岁的西欧，已经有一场革命。

Taken together, these things have implications which are only beginning to be acknowledged. 综上所述，人们只是刚刚开始认识到这意味着什么。