考研英语阅读练习：《经济学人》选读

考研英语阅读练习：《经济学人》选读

Social change

社会的改变

The weaker sex

弱男子

Blue-collar men in rich countries are in trouble. Theymust learn to adapt

在发达国家的蓝领男性群体正处于困境中，他们必须学会适应。

AT FIRST glance the patriarchy appears to be thriving. More than 90% of presidents andprime ministers are male, as are nearly all big corporate bosses. Men dominate finance,technology, films, sports, music and even stand-up comedy. In much of the world they stillenjoysocial and legal privileges simply because they have a Y chromosome. So it might seemodd to worry about the plight of men.

父系社会现在咋一看似乎正兴盛。超过90%的国家总统总理，和几乎所有大型公司的大boss都是男性。男性统治着经济，科技，企业，体育，音乐，甚至连说相声的都基本是男的。在大多数国家里男人仅仅因为拥有一条Y染色体便享有在社会和法律上的特权，这样看来，担心男性的“悲催命运”般的困境似乎是在杞人忧天。

Yet there is plenty of cause for concern. Men cluster at the bottom as well as the top. They arefar more likely than women to be jailed, estranged from their children, or to kill themselves.They earn fewer university degrees than women. Boys in the developed world are 50% morelikely to flunk basic maths, reading and science entirely.

但有却又大量的原由让人不得不担心。男性群体从渣男到精英男，他们在被关进监狱啊，被他们的孩子疏远嫌弃啊，或者自杀率啊都远远大于女性，却在取得更多的大学学位上败给了女性。在发达国家中，有50%左右的男孩会在基础数学，阅读和科学学科上挂掉。

One group in particular is suffering. Poorly educated men in rich countries have had difficultycoping with the enormous changes in the labour market and the home over the past

half-century. As technology and trade have devalued brawn, less-educated men have struggled tofind a role in the workplace. Women, on the other hand, are surging into expanding sectorssuch as health care and education, helped by their superior skills. As education has becomemore important, boys have also fallen behind girls in school (except at the very top). Men wholose jobs in manufacturing often never work again. And men without work find it hard to attracta permanent mate. The result, for low-skilled men, is a poisonous combination of no job, nofamily and no prospects.

在男性群体中又有一类人尤其遭罪。在过去的半个世纪里，发达国家里的受教育程度低的男性已经非常难应对发生了巨变的劳工市场和家庭。现代技术革新和贸易已经使原先的靠劳力形式的肌肉男的价值直线下降，缺少教育的男性，不得不在职场中苦苦挣扎，才能博得一席之地。相反的，女性却依靠着自身出众的技能，在像医疗卫生和教育这样的领域里大放异彩。教育已经变成更重要的事情，而男孩却学校里被女孩甩在了身后(尖端领域学科除外)。从工厂失业的男性常从此不再去工作。而没有工作的男性会发现去吸引永久的伴侣是件非常难的事。由此导致低技术的男性被无工作，无家庭，无前景的“三无”剧毒环环围住。

From nuclear families to fissile ones

从核心家庭到易碎家庭

Those on the political left tend to focus on economics. Shrinking job opportunities for men,they say, are entrenching poverty and destroying families. In America pay for men with only ahigh-school certificate fell by 21% in real terms between 1979 and 2013; for women with similarqualifications it rose by 3%. Around a fifth of working-age American men with only a high-school diploma have no job.

支持左翼的人倾向于专注于经济，他们认为减少男性工作的机会会加剧贫穷，并，并摧毁家庭。在美国，只有高中学历的男性的实际收入，从1979年到2013年减低了21%，而同等学历的女性，在此期间的实际收入却提高了3%。约有5分之一的只有高中学历的处在工作适龄的男性，处在失业中。

Those on the right worry about the collapse of the family. The vast majority of women wouldprefer to have a partner who does his bit both financially and domestically. But they wouldrather do without one than team up with a layabout, which may be all that is on offer: Americanmen without jobs spend only half as much time on housework and caring for others as dowomen in the same situation, and much more time watching television.

支持右翼的人担心着家庭的崩溃。绝大多数的女性倾向于和愿兼顾家里财政收入职能和家务劳动职能的男性成为两口子。她们宁愿单身也不愿随便和一个游手好闲的卢瑟勉强过一辈子，而这是有依据的：美国失业男性仅仅只付出同等条件下失业女性的一半的时间来做家务事和照顾彼此的生活，这些男人会花更多的时间来看电视。

Hence the unravelling of working-class families. The two-parent family, still the norm among theelite, is vanishing among the poor. In rich countries the proportion of births outside