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  3. Social Aging: A Billion Shades of Grey A)Warren Buffett is a symbol of American capitalism. At 83, he also stands for a noticeab

Social Aging: A Billion Shades of Grey A)Warren Buffett is a symbol of American capitalism. At 83, he also stands for a noticeab

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问题                             Social Aging: A Billion Shades of Grey
A)Warren Buffett is a symbol of American capitalism. At 83, he also stands for a noticeable population trend: for highly skilled people to go on working well into what was once thought to be old age.Across the rich world, well-educated people increasingly work longer than the less-skilled. Some 65% of American men aged 62 - 74 with a professional degree are in the workforce, compared with 32% of men with only a high-school certificate. In the European Union the pattern is similar.
B)This gap is part of a deepening divide between the well-educated rich and the unskilled poor that is common through all age groups. Rapid innovation has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while squeezing those of the unskilled. Those at the top are working longer hours each year than those at the bottom. And the well-qualified are extending their working lives, compared with those of lesseducated people. The consequences, for individuals and society, are significant.
C)The world is on the peak of an astonishing rise in the number of old people, and they will live longer than ever before. Over the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600 million to 1.1 billion. The experience of the 20th century, when greater duration of life translated into more years in retirement rather than more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift will lead to slower economic growth and even the lack of development in the long run, while the increasing ranks of pensioners (领养老金者)will make the government short of money.
D)But the notice of a sharp division between the working young and the idle old misses a new trend, the growing gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people, whereas older skilled folk are working longer. The divide is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers (婴儿潮时期出生的人)are putting off retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce.
E)Policy is partly responsible. Many European governments have abandoned policies that used to encourage people to retire early. The long life span is expected. The generous pension plans are replaced by mean ones. So, even people in a better economic condition must work longer to have a comfortable retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has been raised sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to reap rich rewards into old age because these days the educated old men are more productive than their predecessors (前任).Technological change may well reinforce that shift: the skills, from management expert knowledge to creativity, which cannot be taken place by computers, do not necessarily disappear with age.
F)This trend will benefit not just fortunate old people but also, in some ways, society as a whole. Growth will slow less sharply than expected; government money will be in better shape, as high earners pay taxes for longer.Rich countries with lots of well-educated older people will find the burden of aging easier to bear than places like China, where half of all 50-to-64-year-olds did not complete primary-school education.
G)At the other end of the social scale, however, things do not look optimistic. Manual work gets harder as people get older, and public pensions look more attractive to those on low wages and the unemployed. The popular figures which most of the public hate will possibly be those old men collecting taxpayer’s charity while their hard-working contemporaries struggle for life.
H)Nor are all the effects on the economy beneficial. Wealthy old people will accumulate more savings, which will weaken demand. The gap will increase and a growing share of wealth will eventually be transferred to the next generation via inheritance. The division between winners and losers is still strengthened further. One likely response is to impose higher inheritance taxes. As long as they replaced less-fair taxes, that might make sense. They would probably encourage old people to spend their cash rather than save it. But governments should focus not on distributing income again and again but on generating more of it by reforming retirement and education.
I)Age should no longer determine the appropriate end of a working life. Required retirement ages and pension rules that discourage people from working longer should go. Welfare should reflect the greater opportunities open to the higher-skilled.Pensions should become more progressive (i. e.less generous to the rich). At the same time, this trend favors the importance of increasing public investment in education at all stages of life, so that more people acquire the skills they need to thrive in the modern labor market. Today, many governments are unwilling to spend money training older folk who are likely to retire soon. But if people can work for longer, that investment makes much more sense. Lazy 60-year-olds are unlikely to become computer scientists, but they could learn useful professional skills, such as caring for the growing number of very old people. J)How likely are governments to make these changes? Look around the rich world today, and it is hard to be optimistic. Germany, despite being the fastest-aging country in Europe, plans to cut the legal retirement age for some people. In America, Social Security (the public pension scheme)is still not reformed. Politicians need to convince less-skilled older man that it is in their interests to go on working. If the problem is not solved properly, it will have a worse effect on the economic development.
It is important to invest more in the cultivation of useful professional skills at all phases of life.
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