Last September, the U.S. government announced that its birthrate fell to "another record low". Morally speaking, there’s nothing

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问题     Last September, the U.S. government announced that its birthrate fell to "another record low". Morally speaking, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s【C1】________ in a way. All over the world, birthrates tend to fall a-long with economic development.
    The thing about an increasingly childless economy is that it has major implications for【C2】________. It is confirmed by a new data from a Gallup survey【C3】________on the average daily spending of families. Even after you control for income, age, education, and【C4】________status, families with young kids spend more every day.
    What are parents spending on? Not just books, toys, and games. The Department of Agriculture【C5】________ surveys the many ways we spend on our kids, to the tune of about $14,000 a year. The【C6】________majority of money goes to the【C7】________: housing, food, transportation, and education. Housing is kind of funny, because young children tend not to have their housing units,【C8】________the parents are extremely well-off and the children are terribly misbehaved. The survey estimates the housing portion of spending by trying to【C9】________a few factors: the cost of an extra bedroom, the cost of moving into safer【C10】________with better schools, and the cost of buying homes with larger yards.
    It is【C11】________that on economic growth, some of the most discussed variables on editorial pages and cable news are policy choices like tax rates or international events. But buried【C12】________these headlines is the glacier of demographics, the steady and unyielding force of human numbers to【C13】________the economy. The【C14】________in U.S. birthrates in recent years has almost certainly had a negative effect on consumer spending (and,【C15】________, lower birthrates are probably an outcome of the recession). In particular, childless couples don’t need space for more kids so they’re less【C16】________to buy homes in the suburbs,【C17】________demand for housing that badly needs to sell more homes. In other words,【C18】________families and less household formation【C19】________the U.S. economy of housing and transportation spending, which has historically accounted for half of family【C20】________.
【C17】

选项 A、increasing
B、creating
C、depressing
D、eliminating

答案C

解析 前一分句意为“夫妇们不会买房”,也就是指住房需求(demand for housing)会下降。C项depressing意为“压制”,可表示使买房需求下降的意思。A项increasing意为“增加”,B项creating意为“创造”。此两项意指不买房的行为会积极促进对住房的需求,与前文内容意思明显矛盾。D项eliminating意为“消除”,指会让人们完全失去买房需求。这不符合常理。
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