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  3. Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high u

Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high u

admin2017-08-26  81
问题     Opinion polls are now beginning to show a reluctant consensus that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment mere widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future of work. Should we continue to treat employment as the norm? Should we not rather encourage many other ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centers of production and work?
    The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people’s work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be coming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought may have to be reversed. This seems a daunting thought. But, in fact, it could offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom.
    Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17 th and 18 th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people’s homes. Later, as transport improved, first by rail and then by road, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people’s work lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they lived.
    Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In pre-industrial times, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and the family to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today, and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes.
    It was not only women whose work status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were excluded—a problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives.
    All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the Utopian goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full-time jobs.
Modern forms of transportation have greatly encouraged  ______.
选项 A、the phenomenon of deprivation of employees’ leisure time
B、the disconnection between people’s work and their family life
C、the commutation between the working places and employees’ homes
D、people’s desire to work far away from where they were born
答案B
解析 根据题干中的关键词transportation将本题定位于第3段。该段最后一句指出，后来随着交通的发展，人们先是通过铁路，而后通过公路，在住所和工作地之间进行更长距离的往返，直到最终。很多人的工作与他们的家庭生活以及居住地之间失去了联系。由此可见，交通的发展最终使得人们的工作与他们的生活和居住地不再有关系。故答案为B(使人们的工作和家庭生活失去了联系)。
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