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  3. By 2030, people over 65 in Germany, the world’s third-largest economy, will account for almost half the adult population, compar

By 2030, people over 65 in Germany, the world’s third-largest economy, will account for almost half the adult population, compar

admin2010-01-10  100
问题    By 2030, people over 65 in Germany, the world’s third-largest economy, will account for almost half the adult population, compared with one-fifth now. And unless the country’s birth rate recovers from its present low of 1.3 per woman, over the same period its population of under 35 will shrink about twice as fast as the older population will grow. The net result will be that the total population, now 82 m, will decline to 70 m - 73 m. The number of people of working age will fall by a full quarter, from 40 m today to 30 m.
   The German demographics (人口统计) are far from exceptional. In Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, the population will peak in 2005, at around 125 m. By 2050, according to the more pessimistic government forecasts, the population will have shrunk to around 95 m. Long before that, around 2030, the share of the over-65’s in the adult population will have grown to about half. And the birth rate in Japan, as in Germany, is down to 1.3 per woman. The figures are pretty much the same for most other developed countries, and for a good many emerging ones, especially China.
   Life expectancy — and with it the number of older people — has been going up steadily for 300 years. But the decline in the number of young people is something new, The only developed country that has so far avoided this fate is America. But even there the birth rate is well below replacement level, and the proportion of older people in the adult population will rise steeply in the next 30 years.
   All this means that winning the support of older people will become a political imperative (需要) in every developed country. Pensions have already become a regular election issue. There is also a growing debate about the desirability of immigration to maintain the population and workforce. Together these two issues are transforming the political landscape in every developed country.
   By 2030 at the latest, the age at which full retirement benefits start will have risen to the mid-70’s in all developed countries, and benefits for healthy pensioners will be substantially lower than they are today. Indeed, fixed retirement ages for people in reasonable physical and mental condition may have been abolished to prevent the pensions burden on the working population from becoming unbearable. Already young and middle-aged people at work suspect that there will not be enough pension money to go round when they themselves reach traditional retirement age. But politicians everywhere continue to pretend that they can save the current pensions system.
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选项 A、birth rate has gone up to 1.3 per woman
B、people over 65 now constitutes about half the adult population
C、its population of under-35s is twice as large as that of over-65s
D、by 2030 its working force may have shrunk by 25%
答案D
解析 细节性归纳题。文章第一段介绍了德国的人口老龄化问题。根据最后一句可知，到2030年德国的劳动人口将减少四分之一(a full quarter)，即25%，所以正确答案为D。而该段第一句指出：与现在年龄超过65岁的人口占老年人口的1/5相比，到2030年，在世界上第三大经济体的德国，年龄超过65岁的人口将占老年人口的一半。因此可知B项错误。
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