主题翻译人口老龄化第三篇十亿银发族（20140424）

A billion shades of grey

十亿银发族

英文部分选自经济学人20140424 Leaders版块

Global ageing

全球老龄化

A billion shades of grey

十亿银发族

An ageing economy will be a slower and more unequal one—unless policy starts changing now

除非政策从现在开始改变，否则老龄化经济体的发展将愈发缓慢且不平等现象越发凸显。

WARREN BUFFETT, who on May 3rd hosts the folksy extravaganza that is Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders’ meeting, is an icon of American capitalism (see article). At 83, he also epitomises a striking demographic trend: for highly skilled people to go on working well into what was once thought to be old age. Across the rich world, well-educated people increasingly work longer than the less-skilled. Some 65% of American men aged 62-74 with a professional degree are in the workforce, compared with 32% of men with only a high-school certificate. In the European Union the pattern is similar.

沃伦·巴菲特于5月3日主持了伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway）的年度股东大会——一场低调的行业盛会。83岁的他既象征着美国资本主义，还是一种显著的人口变化趋势的缩影：高技术人才步入老年后对工作依旧得心应手。在富裕国家，受过良好教育的人相比教育水平低的人工作时间更长。在美国处于62-74岁年龄段的职工中，拥有专业学位的大约有65%仍在岗工作，而仅有高中文凭的职工在职比例为32%。欧盟的情况与之相似。金时族

This gap is part of a deepening divide between the well-educated well-off and the unskilled poor that is slicing through all age groups. Rapid innovation has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while squeezing those of the unskilled. Those at the top are working longer hours each year than those at the bottom. And the well-qualified are extending their working lives, compared with those of less-educated people (see article). The consequences, for individuals and society, are profound.

这种差距表明：受过良好教育的富裕阶层与未受过专业训练的贫困阶层之间的分化在不断加深，且这种分化正遍布于所有年龄阶段。快速的创新增加了高技术人才的收入，却压榨了低技术人员的收入。处于高层职位的人每年的工作时间要比底层雇员长得多。另外，与受教育程度较低的人相比，那些资历较老的人工作年限在不断延长。这对个人和社会来说都影响深远。

行文分析：

P1-2：如标题所言，老龄化趋势正在席卷全球，其影响成了我们不得不面对的问题，文章开篇以巴菲特83岁高龄仍活跃在职场为例来引证显著的人口学趋势，即：拥有良好教育和掌握技术的老年人生产力依旧很高。第二段没有继续停留在那些幸运老人（即受过教育且拥有技术的老人）话题上，而是进一步对比受教育的富裕阶级与没有专业技术的贫困阶层，指出其之间的差距在不断加深，紧接着分析差距扩大的原因：时代的快速创新发展给了那些技术工人高薪资，更长的工作时间和更久的工作年限。

Older, wiser and a lot of them

更年长、更聪明的大有人在

The world is on the cusp of a staggering rise in the number of old people, and they will live longer than ever before. Over the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600m to 1.1 billion. The experience of the 20th century, when greater longevity translated into more years in retirement rather than more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift will lead to slower economic growth and secular stagnation, while the swelling ranks of pensioners will bust government budgets.金时族

这个世界正处于这样一个当口：老年人数目急剧增加，并且他们会比以往任何时候活得更久。未来20年，全球65岁及以上的人口将从6亿增至11亿，几乎翻番。20世纪的经验是，寿命的延长会带来退休时间的增加而非工作时间的增加，这让许多人对寿命延长将导致经济增速变缓和长期停滞这一说法深信不疑。与此同时，日益膨胀的养老金申领人口将使政府预算破产。

But the notion of a sharp division between the working young and the idle old misses a new trend, the growing gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people, whereas older skilled folk are working longer. The divide is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers are putting off retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce.金时族

但当我们只关注年轻工作群体和赋闲老年人之间的巨大差异时，往往会忽视掉一个新的趋势，即技术人才和非技术工人群体间不断加深的鸿沟。对于年轻的非技术工人而言，就业率正在下降，而年长技术人才显然能工作更久。在美国，这种分化尤为严重，受过良好教育的婴儿潮一代正面临退休年龄的不断延后，而许多技能不足的年轻人已被挤出了劳动力市场。

Policy is partly responsible. Many European governments have abandoned policies that used to encourage people to retire early. Rising life expectancy, combined with the replacement of generous defined-benefit pension plans with stingier defined-contribution ones, means that even the better-off must work longer to have a comfortable retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has risen sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to reap rich rewards into old age because these days the educated elderly are more productive than their predecessors. Technological change may well reinforce that shift: the skills that complement computers, from management expertise to creativity, do not necessarily decline with age.金时族

个中原因，一国政策难辞其咎。许多欧洲国家原先鼓励人们提前退休，现如今，这项政策已被废除。不断延长的预期寿命，加上养老金计划从回报丰厚的固定收益型向日益紧缩的固定缴费型的转变，意味着即使是富裕人群也需通过延长工作年限来确保自己有安逸的退休生活。然而，工作性质的变化也是一项重要原因。受过高等教育的群体其薪酬水平大幅上涨，并且在这类人步入老年行列时，他们仍能得到丰厚的收益，究其原因，是这些受过教育的老年人比他们的上一代生产率更高。技术变迁很可能也会加剧这种转变：譬如管理才能和创造力这类无法被计算机取代的技能，并不一定会随着年龄的增长而失去价值。

行文分析：

P3-5：第三段指出老龄化迅猛的发展态势以及可能带来的影响；第四段深入刨析主题，越过年轻工作人口与赋闲老年群体之间的差异，进一步引出了新的趋势：技术工和无技术工群体间不断加深的差距，从年龄这个变量对比年轻与老年人的工作状态，得出结论：受过教育的老年人在职场更加吃香；接着第五段开始分析受教育的老年人价值很高的原因，影响因素有：一国政策，工作性质的变化以及技术转型的要求。

This trend will benefit not just fortunate oldies but also, in some ways, society as a whole. Growth will slow less dramatically than expected; government budgets will be in better shape, as high earners pay taxes for longer. Rich countries with lots of well-educated older people will find the burden of ageing easier to bear than places like China, where half of all 50-to-64-year-olds did not complete primary-school education.

这种趋势不仅会让那些幸运的老人们受益，一定程度上，也会惠及整个社会。经济增速放缓的幅度将低于预期；随着高收入者纳税的年限延长，政府预算状况将有所改善。富裕国家即使存在大量年龄更大的老年人口，由于这些人的受教育程度较好，这个国家的总体养老负担也会比中国等地轻很多，因为在中国这些地方，50到64岁年龄段人口中有一半人小学都没有读完。金时族

At the other end of the social scale, however, things look grim. Manual work gets harder as people get older, and public pensions look more attractive to those on low wages and the unemployed. In the lexicon of popular hate-figures, work-shirking welfare queens breeding at the taxpayer’s expense may be replaced by deadbeat grandads collecting taxpayer handouts while their hard-working contemporaries strive on.

然而，从社会的另一个方面来看，现状似乎并不乐观。随着年龄增长，人们愈发难以从事体力劳动，而且对于低收入群体和失业人群来说，公共养老金更具吸引力。如果用一个众所周知的字眼来描述大众公敌，可能不再是靠纳税人的钱过活的福利大妈，取而代之的是在同辈人都努力奋斗时那些只会伸手向纳税人讨要救济的无赖爷爷。

注解：

1. Hate figure: 维基词典上的解释是：a person, normally in the public eye, who is widely disliked and criticized,这里我们翻译成大众公敌。

2.里根曾创造出福利大妈（Welfare Queen）一词，用来描绘那些只靠政府救济和福利过着舒适生活的妇女。详情请参考：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen

Nor are all the effects on the economy beneficial. Wealthy old people will accumulate more savings, which will weaken demand. Inequality will increase and a growing share of wealth will eventually be transferred to the next generation via inheritance, entrenching the division between winners and losers still further.金时族

并非所有对经济的影响都是有益的。富有的老年人将拥有更多储蓄，这将会削弱社会需求。不平等现象将会加剧，下一代最终将会继承更多财富，进而加深人生赢家们和失败者们的两极分化。

One likely response is to impose higher inheritance taxes. So long as they replaced less-fair taxes, that might make sense. They would probably encourage old people to spend their cash rather than salt it away. But governments should focus not on redistributing income but on generating more of it by reforming retirement and education.

征收更高的遗产税是一种可能的解决办法。只要能够取代不公平的税收制度，那么这种办法就是有意义的。政府可能会鼓励老年人花钱而非储蓄，但政府更应该侧重于改革退休制度和教育来创造更多财富，而非局限在收入再分配上。

Age should no longer determine the appropriate end of a working life. Mandatory retirement ages and pension rules that discourage people from working longer should go. Welfare should reflect the greater opportunities open to the higher-skilled. Pensions should become more progressive (ie, less generous to the rich). At the same time, this trend underlines the importance of increasing public investment in education at all stages of life, so that more people acquire the skills they need to thrive in the modern labour market. Today, many governments are understandably loth to spend money retraining older folk who are likely to retire soon. But if people can work for longer, that investment makes much more sense. Deadbeat 60-year-olds are unlikely to become computer scientists, but they could learn useful vocational skills, such as caring for the growing number of very old people.金时族

年龄不应该成为职业生涯结束的决定性因素，强制退休年龄和限制工作时间的养老规定应该被取消。福利制度应该体现出面向高技能人才的更大机会。养老金应该更加循序渐进（比如，减少对富人的支持力度）。与此同时，这种趋势证明增加公共教育投资在任何年龄段都很重要，这样才能让更多人获得现代劳动力市场所需的技能。如今，许多国家都不愿意花钱培训年长职员，因为这些人可能很快就会退休，这一点是不难理解的。但如果人们工作的时间变长，这样的投资就有用多了。那些无所事事的60岁老人虽不太可能成为计算机科学家，但他们可以学习有用的职业技能，比如照顾越来越多的高龄老人。

Old power

老年人的能耐

How likely are governments to make these changes? Look around the rich world today, and it is hard to be optimistic. The swelling ranks of older voters, and their disproportionate propensity to vote, have left politicians keener to pander to them than to implement disruptive reforms. Germany, despite being the fastest-ageing country in Europe, plans to cut the statutory retirement age for some people (see article). In America both Social Security (the public pension scheme) and the fast-growing system of disability benefits remain untouched by reform. Politicians need to convince less-skilled older voters that it is in their interests to go on working. Doing so will not be easy. But the alternative—economic stagnation and even greater inequality—is worse.金时族

政府做出这些改变的可能性有多大？看看如今各富裕国家的状况，人们对此很难保持乐观的态度。愈发庞大的老年选民队伍以及他们在投票权上的压倒性优势，都使得政客们更热衷于迎合他们，而不是实施革命性的改革。德国尽管是欧洲老龄化速度最快的国家，但也计划降低一些人的法定退休年龄（经济学人另一篇文章有详解）。美国的社保体系(公共养老金计划)和快速增长的残疾人士福利体系都没有受到改革的影响。政客们需要说服工作技能较低的年长选民，让他们相信继续工作是符合他们的利益的。这并不是一件容易的事。但其他选择（例如经济停滞甚至不平等加剧）势必会造成更糟糕的局面。

行文分析：

P6-11：第六段和第七段分别分析了老年人工作年限变长对社会整体的优劣影响；第八段介绍该趋势对经济的影响：老年人更加富有，消费需求降低，贫富差距拉大；接着第九段提出了可能的应对建议；第十段是本文关键的一段，在这里作者积极列举了数条老龄化经济体的优化措施，回应了文章标题第三行除非政策从现在开始改变的内容，然而第十一段回归现实，列举几点国家现状作为支撑，指出老龄化国家采取上述措施做出改变的几率并不大。金时族