2006年VOA标准英语-Russia Losing Battle in Population Growth

By Lisa McAdams
Moscow
08 March 2006
 
No country faces as severe a population decline as Russia. Disease, accidental death, and a decline in healthy newborns are to blame. In fact, deaths in Russia outnumber births, and most of those who die are in the 20-49 age group, the most productive segment of the population. Leading experts on the subject say such a population decline has a devastating¹ impact on the workforce², military recruitment and family formation.

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Boy gestures in Baby House No. 10, which specializes in treating HIV-positive children, in St. Petersburg (File photo - Nov. 16, 2005)   
  

According to the most recent forecasts, Russia's population of 143 million people is expected to decrease by 22 percent between now and the year 2050. If the figures are borne out, Russia could lose up to 42 percent of its active working population.

The decline is being fueled primarily by two things: low birth rates, with Russian women increasingly choosing work over motherhood, and increased death rates among a rapidly aging population.

The decline has many people worried that Russia may some day face the grim reality of not having enough young men to serve in the army, or young women to work in hospitals, local government, or schools. There is also concern about economic collapse³, with many people, like Boris Prokhorov, the Director of Russia's Laboratory for National Health, who believes that a country's demographic profile and its economy are intrinsically linked.

Prokhorov says the number of people who get sick in Russia is comparable to that of the United States, but in Russia, he says, people die10 to 12 years earlier of the same illnesses. He connects that trend to the fact that Russia has, in his view, a dilapidated health care system.

Prokhorov says millions of Russians still live near or below the poverty line, making applying to doctors for anything resembling preventive health care virtually non-existent. In addition, he says Russia is the indisputable champion in deaths caused by external factors like alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and violence. It is these vices⁴, along with Russia's booming HIV/AIDS infection rates, among the highest in the world, that are taking ever greater numbers of young Russians' lives.

Factor in Russia's long-standing problem with tuberculosis⁵ and Prokhorov says you've got a wholesale⁶ collection of negatives working to bring population numbers down.

 
Vladimir Putin 
  
During his annual press conference last month in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin was asked what his government was doing to combat the problems of population decline in Russia. He replied by noting recent steps to offer lump-sum payments of nearly $300 to new parents, as well as ordering a slight increase in monthly child support payments. Mr. Putin acknowledged these were just small steps. Still, he said he was confident Russian officials are moving in the right direction.

The Russian president also rejected calls to abolish Russia's state pension fund and return to a more Soviet⁷-style system, whereby the elderly would rely on their children, rather than the state, for essential support.

President Putin says Russia will never abandon the pension system. Instead, he says, his government is looking at ways to make it better, especially the question of how to increase today's contributions to the fund so that it can keep up with the expected rise in demand for payouts, with nearly 20 percent of the Russian population now 60 years of age or older.

Others in the government and academia have pinned their hopes of stemming Russia's population decline on increased migration⁸ into Russia. Specifically, they would like to see the legal, regulated migration of well-educated Russians and Russian speakers from other former Soviet States to regions in Russia where they are deemed most needed.

There was a brief flurry of such migration after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the trend was short-lived.

Analyst⁹ Olga Kyrshtanovskaya, who heads the Center for the Study of Russia's Elite¹⁰, supports the government's plan to start a long-term program this year to try to encourage Russian immigrants back to Russia as a way to counter population loss.

Kyrshtanovskaya says the government is taking much-needed steps to restore pride in all things Russian as a first step to reposition Russia as a possible good place to emigrate. But others, like Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Nemtsev, say that encouraging immigrants to return to Russia could cause more harm than good.

Nemtsev says returning immigrants, especially those of differing ethnic¹¹ and religious backgrounds can sometimes stoke additional tensions in his view, especially in bigger cities where competition for jobs and housing is fierce.

Anatoly Vishnevsky, Director of the Center for Demography¹² and Human Ecology, is also against using immigration as a way to try to solve Russia's shrinking population problem. Vishnevsky says there are not enough potential Russian immigrants to repatriate¹³ in order to solve the huge projected deficits¹⁴ in Russia's population by mid-century.

Secondly¹⁵, he says it is hard for him to imagine that all these people would suddenly decide to repatriate to Russia, after having already made a new life elsewhere. Even if they did, Vishnevsky adds, Russia will still have to deal with its rising death rates and declining births.

1 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。

2 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

3 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

4 vices   

缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳

参考例句：

• In spite of his vices, he was loved by all. 尽管他有缺点，还是受到大家的爱戴。
• He vituperated from the pulpit the vices of the court. 他在教堂的讲坛上责骂宫廷的罪恶。

5 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

6 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

7 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

8 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

9 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

10 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

11 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

12 demography   

n.人口统计，人口学

参考例句：

• Demography is the analysis of population variables.人口学是对人口变量的分析。
• It was once a rule of demography that people have fewer children as their countries get richer.按人口统计学的一贯规律，一个国家里的人民越富有，他们所拥有的孩子就越少。

13 repatriate   

v.遣返；返回；n.被遣返回国者

参考例句：

• The government safely repatriates victims.政府安全遣返了受害者。
• In this part,you need to formulate in detail repatriate the plan.在这一部分，你需要制定详细的归国计划。

14 deficits   

n.不足额( deficit的名词复数 )；赤字；亏空；亏损

参考例句：

• The Ministry of Finance consistently overestimated its budget deficits. 财政部一贯高估预算赤字。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Many of the world's farmers are also incurring economic deficits. 世界上许多农民还在遭受经济上的亏损。 来自辞典例句

15 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。