【美国的人口压力】双重束缚

America's demographic squeeze

美国的人口压力

Double bind

双重束缚

A falling birth rate and much slower immigration presage long-term trouble ahead

出生率下降和移民数量大幅减少预示着未来的长期难题

Dec 15th 2012 | WASHINGTON, DC | from the print edition of The Economist

译者：老狒狒

ALTHOUGH America's fiscal problems are among the worst in the rich world, its policymakers long took comfort that, when it came to demography, its outlook was one of the best. Because Americans have so many babies and welcome so many immigrants, they had more room to deal with the coming burden of pensions and health care for the elderly.

尽管美国的财政问题在富裕国家中位居最差之列，但是当谈到人口问题时，美国的决策者们长久以来得到慰籍，认为美国在此问题上的前景是富裕国家中最好的之一。美国有难么多新生儿，欢迎那么多移民，因此他们有更多的空间来应对未来的养老金和老年人医疗保险的负担。

But the savage recession of 2007-09 and its aftermath have not just deepened America's fiscal hole; they have weakened those demographic advantages. America's fertility rate has been falling since 2007, as has net immigration. Compounding this, the share of the population that is active in the labour force has slipped, both because of ageing and because of the recession's lingering effects.

但是，2007年-2009年的严重衰退及其后遗症不仅扩大了美国的财政缺口；它们还消弱了那些人口方面的优势。美国的出生率自2007年以来持续下降，净移民数量亦是如此。在人口老龄化和衰退持续影响这两方面原因的联合作用下，劳动力市场中的活跃人口在总人口中的份额也在下滑。

On December 12th the Census Bureau said America's projected population would rise 27% to 400m by 2050. That is 9% less than it projected for that year back in 2008. Those 65 and over will grow to 22% of the population by 2060 from 14% now, while the working-age population slips to 57% from 63%.

12月12日，美国人口普查局发布公告称，到2050年，美国的预期人口将比现在增加27%达到4,000,000,000。相比2008年对2050年人口的预期，这个数字减少了9%。公告还称，到2060年，65岁及65岁以上的人口在总人口中的比例将从现在的14%增加到22%，同时劳动年龄人口的百分比将从现在的63%减少到57%。

The new projections, based on the 2010 census, are based on recent trends in fertility and immigration. The number of babies born per 1,000 women of childbearing age (also called the “general” fertility rate) fell to 63 in the 12 months that ended in June of this year, the lowest since at least 1920, and well below the recent high of 69 recorded in 2007. That is partly because the average age of women of childbearing age has increased. The “total” fertility rate adjusts for the age of the population and extrapolates how many children each woman will have over her lifetime. This, too, has fallen, and at 1.9 it is below the replacement rate of 2.1. America's fertility rate is still higher than the average for the OECD, but has fallen sharply since 2007.

根据2010年人口普查得出的这些最新预期来自于生育和移民方面的最新趋势。在截止到今年6月的12个月中，每千名育龄妇女生育的婴儿数量（亦称为“一般”生育率）降至63，这至少是1920年以来的最低数字，它远远低于2007年时创下的69人的最新纪录。其中一部分原因在于，育龄妇女的平均年龄一直在提高。“总和”生育率根据人口的年龄作出调整，并由此推断出每个妇女在一生中将会生育多少个孩子。这个比例也在下降，目前的总和生育率为1.9，低于2.1的人口替换率标准。虽然美国的生育率仍然高于经合组织（OECD）的平均水平，但是自2007年以来已经大幅下滑。

Immigration has been an important component of America's population growth, thanks both to the influx of new people and to their tendency to have more babies. Those advantages, too, have started to dwindle. A report by the Pew Research Centre notes that the birth rate has fallen especially sharply for immigrant women, to 88 per 1,000 women of reproductive age in 2010 from the recent peak of 102, though it remains well above that of American-born women. The Census Bureau reckons that net migration in 2011 was only 700,000, down 28% from 2006 and the lowest for at least a decade.

鉴于新增人口的流入以及他们生育更多孩子的倾向，移民一直是美国人口增长的一个重要组成部分。这些优势也开始慢慢消失。皮尤研究中心的一份报告指出，尽管移民妇女生育率仍旧大大高于美国出生的妇女，但是下降特别严重，每千名育龄妇女的生育率已经从2010年顶峰的102下降到现在的88。美国人口普查局预测，2011年的净移民数量只有700,000，同2006年相比下降了26%，为近十年来的最低数字。

The main reason for the fall in both fertility and immigration is the economy. There are fewer opportunities on construction sites and elsewhere for immigrants. Children are expensive, so couples delay having them when their prospects dim. Gretchen Livingston, a demographer at Pew, notes that the only state in which births rose in 2009 was North Dakota, largely bypassed by recession, whereas they fell especially sharply in devastated Arizona, Nevada and Florida. This means that when the economy recovers, so should fertility. Policymakers have yet to panic; the Social Security Commission, which manages America's public pension system, reckons fertility and immigration will bounce back in the next few years.

经济是造成生育率下降和移民减少的主要原因。移民在建筑工地和其他地方找到工作的机会越来越少。由于抚养孩子的成本过高，因此夫妇们在自身前景暗淡时推迟生育后代。皮尤公司的人口学家格雷琴·利文斯顿（Gretchen Livingston）指出，在2009年，北达科他州是唯一一个出生率出现增长的州，很大一部分原因在于这个州遭遇的衰退打击并不严重；相比之下，深陷衰退的亚利桑那州、内华达州和佛罗里达州的人口出生率则急剧下降。由此可知，当经济开始复苏时，生育率也会提高。决策者们还不必对此忧心忡忡；据管理美国公共养老金体系的社会保障委员会预测，生育率和移民数量将在今后几年内出现反弹。

This may be too sanguine. Structural as well as cyclical factors are at work. Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau, a research outfit, notes that couples have been getting married ever later in life; in 2011 the median age at first marriage was 28.7 and 26.5 for men and women respectively, the highest on record. A rising share of women in their early 40s are childless. In this respect America may be following the experience of Europe.

这或许过于乐观。结构性因素和周期性因素都对此有影响。研究机构——人口资料局的马克·马萨（Mark Mather）说，人们结婚的年龄越来越大；2011年时，男人与妇女的首次结婚年龄中位数分别是28.7和26.6，这是有纪录以来最高的。40岁早期没有孩子的妇女比例正在上升。以此来看，美国或许正在走着欧洲的老路。

Though it will be two decades before today's lower fertility affects the ranks of workers, America can ill afford it. Growth in its labour force has slowed dramatically since the recession; in November it was only 1% larger than at the end of 2007, a period in which the working-age population grew by 5%. This is partly because of the weak economy, which has driven many people into early retirement, others on to disability payments, and some out of the job hunt altogether. Nevertheless, the Congressional Budget Office sees the potential labour force (that is, after excluding purely cyclical influences) as growing by only 0.5% a year in the coming decade, largely because the population is ageing. That puts ever more of the burden of supporting old-age benefits on a stagnant population of workers.

尽管消除当前低生育率对劳动力队伍的影响需要20年，美国还是能够承担的起。衰退以来，劳动人口的增长已经显著放缓；同2007年年底相比，今年9月份的增长只有1%，在这段时间内劳动年龄的人口增加了5%。造成这种情况的原因，一方面在于疲弱的经济，它迫使许多人早早退休；另一部分原因在于残疾人补助和部分人不再寻找工作。即使如此，国会预算局仍然认为，潜在的劳动力（去除纯周期性影响之后）在未来10年内仅会以每年0.5%的速度增长，其中很大一部分原因在于人口的老化。这使得在停滞的劳动力人口之上负担老年人福利的负担愈发沉重。

For politicians struggling over the deficit, these trends point to some remedies. One would be gradually to raise the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare over coming decades, encouraging Americans to work longer. Another would be to allow more immigration. Neither would solve America's immediate deficit problem; but they would make the long-term challenge more manageable.

对于正在为赤字而绞尽脑汁的政客们来说，这些趋势给他们指出了一些解决问题的办法。其一，在未来的数十年中逐步

提高享受社会保障和医疗保险的适用年龄，鼓励美国人延长工作年龄；其二，允许更多的移民进入美国。这两个办法哪一个也不能解决美国当前的赤字问题；但是他们可以使长期的挑战变得更加可控。

译注：

1.1956年，著名英国心理学家葛雷格里. 贝特森提出了关于精神分裂症病因的双重束缚理论（Double Bind Theory）。他举例说，如果一位母亲嘴上对自己的宝宝说“我爱你”，同时却扭过头去不理孩子，这时孩子就受到了“双重束缚”（与我们中国人所说的“无所适从”有些类似）。小孩子在身心上都严重依赖于母亲，面临这种情景，他（她）无法对母亲表达出自己心理上的矛盾感受。一个人长期受到双重束缚，就容易得精神分裂症。半个世纪以来，精神病学界围绕该理论正确与否有过激烈的争论，迄今没有取得共识，因为虽然很多人觉得双重束缚理论具有实用价值，但是难以获得经验研究的证实。不过，“双重束缚”这一说法不胫而走，在许多领域都获得应用。

　贝特森认为，人类面临的最基本的双重束缚是：从一个层次上说，人类进化已经到了很发达的程度，可以为个体的生存而抗争（比如，在科学和医学不发达的时候，有残疾的婴儿很可能被父母抛弃，或者夭折，现在，无数残疾婴儿生存了下来且长大成人了），而从另一个层次上说，人类作为一个有性繁殖的物种，仍然摆脱不了死亡。大部分宗教其实都在试图帮人类摆脱这个基本的双重束缚。从这个意义上说，贝特森认为，与其说《圣经》（或其他宗教经典）的创世故事是迷信和谎言，还不如说它们是表达真理的另一种版本--隐喻的、诗意的版本。

OALED(第七版)的解释是：a situation in which it is difficult to choose what to do because whatever you choose will have negative results 两难境地。

考虑到TE文章专业性强的特点，在此不做引申意义翻译，取其原意：双重束缚。

2.本文所涉及的几个人口学方面的专业术语：

一般生育率（general fertility rate）指某一地区一定时期内（通常为一年）出生的活产婴儿与同期育龄妇女平均数之比，也称总生育率。通常用千分比表示，说明每千名育龄妇女生育的活婴数。公式：一般生育率=（年内活产婴儿数/同期平均育龄妇女数）×1000‰ 一般生育率比出生率要精确一些，因为它将生育同可能生育的特定性别年龄的人口联系起来（通常是15-49岁的妇女）。这样排除了年龄性别结构不同引起的偏差。因此，一般生育率比出生率更能揭示生育水平的变化。

总和生育率（total fertility rate），也称总生育率，是指该国家或地区的妇女在育龄期间，每个妇女平均的生育子女数。这种生育率计算方式，并非建立在真正一组生育妇女的数据上，因为这涉及等待完成生育的时间。此外，这种计算模式并不代表妇女们一生生育的子女数，而是基于妇女的育龄期，国际传统上一般以15岁至44岁或49岁为准。

人口替换率/置换率 （replacement rate ）是指，为使一个国家或某个区域在人口上出生与死亡达到某种相对的平衡而产生的一个比率。即每个妇女平均生小孩的个数，去扭转失调或保持平衡状态。联合国推算指出，标准的人口置换率为2.1。