[简答题]population ageing

[填空题]The world has never seen population ageing before. Can it cope Until the early 1990s nobody much thought about whole populations getting older. The UN had the foresight to convene a "world assembly on ageing" back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happening. In a report entitled "Averting the Old Age Crisis", it argued that pension arrangements in most countries were unsustainable. For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded the alarm. They had titles like Young vs Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare. Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and health-care promises will soon become unaffordable, and many of them have embarked on reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not surprising: politicians with an eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduce unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades. The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal meltdown, public pensions and health-care provision will have to be reined back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP"s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal, people who remain at work have lower death rates than their retired peers. Younger people today mostly accept that they will have to work for longer and that their pensions will be less generous. Employers still need to be persuaded that older workers are worth holding on to. That may be because they have had plenty of younger ones to choose from, partly thanks to the post-war baby-boom and partly because over the past few decades many more women have entered the labour force, increasing employers" choice. But the reservoir of women able and willing to take up paid work is running low, and the baby-boomers are going grey. In many countries immigrants have been filling such gaps in the labor force as have already emerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around ten years off). Immigration in the developed world is the highest it has ever been, and it is making a useful difference. In still-fertile America it currently accounts for about 40% of total population growth, and in fast-ageing western Europe for about 90%. On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many developing countries have lots of young people in need of jobs; many rich countries need helping hands that will boost tax revenues and keep up economic growth. But over the next few decades labor forces in rich countries are set to shrink so much that inflows of immigrants would have to increase enormously to compensate: to at least twice their current size in western Europe"s most youthful countries, and three times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of the few immigrants it has at present. Public opinion polls show that people in most rich countries already think that immigration is too high. Further big increases would be politically unfeasible. To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, "old" countries would have to rejuvenate themselves by having more of their own children. A number of them have tried, some more successfully than others. But it is not a simple matter of offering financial incentives or providing more child care. Modem urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to combine family and career. They often compromise by having just one child. A. Intergenerational conflicts will intensify. B. need large numbers of immigrants from overseas C. People should be allowed to work longer. D. They find it hard to balance career and family. E. the current pension system in most countries could not be sustained in the long term F. The employers are unwilling to keep older workers G. politicians are afraid of losing votes in the next electionIn its 1994 report, the World Bank argued that ______.

[简答题]Population ageing has become a world-wide phenomenon. Moreover, it has not only come to stay but, especially in the developing countries, it will become more felt and acute with the passage of time. Its repercussions are so wide-ranging and manifold that they can only be ignored at a tremendous cost to society.
The growing rate of population ageing poses many challenges which have to be faced realistically. A number of decisions have to he taken with the cooperation of every social institution, he it the State, Non-Governmental Organizations, the community, the family members and last but not least, the older persons themselves. Each has a very important role to play in ensuring a sustainable development for the elderly population.
Governments and civil society including organizations of older persons, academia, community-based organizations and the private sector need to help in capacity building on ageing issues. As the Shanghai Implementation Strategy points out, "A life-c

[单项选择]Nationally, an ageing population is a problem. But locally it can be a boon. The over-50s control 80% of Britain"s wealth, and like to spend it on houses and high-street shopping. The young "generation rent", by contrast, is poor, distractible and liable to shop online. People aged between 50 and 74 spend twice as much as the under-30s on cinema tickets. Between 2000 and 2010 restaurant spending by those aged 65-74 increased by 33%, while the under-30s spent 18% less. And while the young still struggle to find work, older people are retiring later. During the financial crisis full-time employment fell for every age group but the over-65s, and there has been a rash of older entrepreneurs. Pensioners also support the working population by volunteering: some 100 retirees in Christchurch help out as business mentors. Even if they wanted to, most small towns and cities could not capture the cool kids. Mobile young professionals cluster, and greatly prefer to cluster in London. Even supposed meccas like Manchester are ageing: clubs in that city are becoming members-only. Towns that aim too young, like Bracknell and Chippenham, can find their high streets full of closed La Senzas (a lingerie chain) and struggling tattoo parlours. Companies often lag behind local authorities in working this out. They are London-obsessed, and have been slow to appreciate the growing economic heft of the old—who are assumed, often wrongly, to stick with products they learned to love in their youth. But Caroyln Freeman of Revelation Marketing reckons Britain could be on the verge of a marketing surge directed at the grey pound, "similar to what we saw with the pink". The window will not remain open forever: soon the baby boomers will start to ail, and no one else alive today is likely to have such a rich retirement. Meanwhile, with the over-50s holding the purse strings, the towns that draw them are likely to grow more and more pleasant. Decent restaurants and nice shops spring up in the favoured haunts of the old, just as they do in the trendy, revamped boroughs of London. Latimer House, a Christchurch furniture store full of retro clothing and 1940s music, would not look out of place in Hackney. Improved high streets then entice customers of all ages. Indeed, gentrification and gerontification can look remarkably similar. Old folk and young hipsters are similarly fond of vinyl and typewriters, and wander about in outsized spectacles. Some people never lose their edge.The ageing population can be locally a boon in Britain in that ______.
A. old folks hold 80% of Britain"s wealth
B. older people spend more money on high-street shopping
C. older people tend to buy big houses than rent houses
D. the elderly like shopping online

[填空题]
The press is constantly reminding us that the dramatic increase in the age of our population over the next 30 or so years will cause national healthcare systems to collapse, economies to crumple under the strain of pension demands and disintegrating families to buckle under increasing care commitments. Yet research at Oxford is beginning to expose some of the widespread myths that underlie this rhetoric. Demographic ageing is undoubtedly a reality. Life expectancy in developed countries has risen continuously over the past century, increasing the percentage of those over the age of 60 relative to those under the age of 15. By 2030 half the population of Western Europe will be over the age of 50, with a predicted average life expectancy of a further 40 years. By then, a quarter of the population will be over 65 and by 2050 the UK’s current number of 10,000 centenarians are predicted to have reached a quarter of a mil

[单项选择]Passage 5