经济学人:人力资本:教育的长久回报期(2)

 　　Human capital could also be applied¹ to topics beyond returns to individuals from education. 人力资本还可以被应用于个人教育回报之外的多种话题。

　　The idea was a powerful variable in explaining why some countries fared far better than others: to promote income growth over many years, heavy investment in schooling² was necessary. 这一思想在解释为什么有些国家比其他国家过得好很多时是一个强有力的变量：为促进长年的收入增长，学校教育方面的大笔投入是必需的。

　　It shed light on why firms in poor countries tended to be more paternalistic, providing dormitories and canteens: they reaped immediate³ productivity gains from rested, well-fed workers. 它论述了为什么穷国的公司往往更具有家长式作风，提供了宿舍和食堂：它们从吃好睡好的工人那里收获了直接的生产力提高。

　　It informed big increases in the numbers of women studying law, finance and science since the 1950s:  它通告了学习法律金融和科学的女性数量在上世纪50年代之后的巨大增长：

　　the automation of much household work meant that women could invest more in building their careers. 大部分家务活的自动化意味着女性可以在构建职业生涯方面投入更多。

　　And it helped explain the shrinkage of families in wealthy countries: if increasing value is placed on human capital, parents must invest more in each child, making large families costly⁴. 同时，它还为解释家庭在富裕国家中的收缩提供了帮助：如果增加值是被放在人力资本之上，父母就必须要为每一个孩子投入更多的钱，这使得大家庭变得成本高昂。

　　But any theory that attempts to explain so much is bound to encounter pushback. 但是，任何试图解释如此多事情的理论注定都会遇到阻力。

　　Many critics bristled⁵ at Becker's market-driven logic⁶, which seemed to reduce people to cold, calculating machines. 许多批评者对贝克尔的这种似乎是把人贬低到等同于冰冷的、会算计的机器的市场驱动逻辑感到不满。

　　Although “human capital” is an unsightly term—in 2004 a panel of German linguists⁷ deemed Humankapital the most offensive word of the year— 尽管“人力资本”是一个不雅观的词语——一些德国语言学者曾在2004年把Humankapital选为年度最具冒犯性词语——

　　it is the task of social science to identify and refine concepts that would otherwise be fuzzy. 但是，认可并完善这些不然就会含义模糊的概念是社会科学的任务。

　　It took Becker's framework to make the importance of education explicit⁸, and to put people at the heart of economics. 它采用了贝克尔的框架是为了明确教育的重要性，也是为了把人置于经济学的中心。

　　Within the discipline, some objected that Becker had overstated the importance of learning. 在学科内部，有些人反对说，贝克尔夸大了学习的重要性。

　　Education matters not because it imparts knowledge, critics said, but because of what it signals about the people who complete university,  批评者声称，教育之所以重要，不是因为它传授知识，而是因为它发出的关于完成了大学学业之人的信号，

　　namely that they are disciplined and more likely to be productive workers. 即，他们受过训练，并且更可能成为高效的工人。

　　In any case, people of greater abilities are the ones who are most likely to get higher degrees in the first place. 一般说来，具有更大能力的是一开始就最有可能拿到更高学位的人。

　　Yet increasingly sophisticated empirical analyses has revealed that the acquisition of knowledge is in fact a big part of what it means to be a student. 然而，日益成熟的实证分析表明，知识的获取实际上是作为一名学生所意味的大部分。

1 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

2 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

3 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

4 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

5 bristled   

adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• They bristled at his denigrating description of their activities. 听到他在污蔑他们的活动，他们都怒发冲冠。
• All of us bristled at the lawyer's speech insulting our forefathers. 听到那个律师在讲演中污蔑我们的祖先，大家都气得怒发冲冠。

6 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

7 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

8 explicit   

adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的

参考例句：

• She was quite explicit about why she left.她对自己离去的原因直言不讳。
• He avoids the explicit answer to us.他避免给我们明确的回答。