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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

admin2010-02-20  53
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 more 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 re- vive the household and the neighbourhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centres 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 of work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom.
    Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th 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 preindustrial 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 pay employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and 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 bye 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 times jobs.
Recent opinion polls show that _____.
选项 A、available employment should be restricted to a small percentage of the population
B、new jobs must be created in order to rectify high unemployment figures
C、available employment must be more widely distributed among the unemployed
D、the present high unemployment figures are a fact of life
答案D
解析 该题问：最近的民意测验显示了什么?文章第一段提到据民意调查显示，人们对失业率居高不下这一点有所抱怨，人们认为应该采取措施提供更多的工作机会。因为这里提到的是要采用一些办法来解决这一问题，而不是必须在现有的情况下做什么，所以答案为D。
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