2015年经济学人 社会的改变 弱男子

Social change

The weaker sex

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

AT FIRST glance the patriarchy appears to be thriving. More than 90% of presidents and prime ministers are male, as are nearly all big corporate¹ bosses.

Men dominate finance, technology, films, sports, music and even stand-up comedy.

In much of the world they still enjoysocial and legal privileges simply because they have a Y chromosome².

So it might seem odd to worry about the plight³ of men.

Yet there is plenty of cause for concern. Men cluster at the bottom as well as the top.

They are far more likely than women to be jailed, estranged⁴ from their children, or to kill themselves.

They earn fewer university degrees than women. Boys in the developed world are 50% more likely to flunk⁵ basic maths, reading and science entirely⁶.

One group in particular is suffering. Poorly educated men in rich countries have had difficulty coping with the enormous changes in the labour market

and the home over the past half-century. As technology and trade have devalued brawn⁷, less-educated men have struggled to find a role in the workplace.

Women, on the other hand, are surging into expanding sectors⁸ such as health care and education, helped by their superior skills.

As education has become more important, boys have also fallen behind girls in school (except at the very top).

Men who lose jobs in manufacturing often never work again. And men without work find it hard to attract a permanent mate.

The result, for low-skilled men, is a poisonous combination of no job, no family and no prospects⁹.

From nuclear families to fissile ones

Those on the political left tend to focus on economics. Shrinking job opportunities for men, they say, are entrenching¹⁰ poverty and destroying families.

In America pay for men with only a high-school certificate fell by 21% in real terms between 1979 and 2013; for women with similar qualifications it rose by 3%.

Around a fifth of working-age American men with only a high-school diploma have no job.

Those on the right worry about the collapse¹¹ of the family.

The vast majority of women would prefer to have a partner who does his bit both financially and domestically.

But they would rather do without one than team up with a layabout, which may be all that is on offer:

American men without jobs spend only half as much time on housework and caring for others as do women in the same situation, and much more time watching television.

Hence the unravelling¹² of working-class families. The two-parent family, still the norm among the elite¹³, is vanishing among the poor.

In rich countries the proportion of births outside marriage has trebled since 1980, to 33%.

In some areas where traditional manufacturing has collapsed¹⁴, it has reached 70% or more.

Children raised in broken homes learn less at school, are more likely to drop out and earn less later on than children from intact ones.

They are also not very good at forming stable families of their own.

These two sides often talk past each other. But their explanations are not contradictory¹⁵:

both economics and social change are to blame, and the two causes reinforce each other.

Moreover, these problems are likely to get worse. Technology will disrupt more industries,

creating benefits for society but rendering¹⁶ workers who fail to update their skills redundant¹⁷.

The OECD, a think-tank, predicts that the absolute number of single-parent households will continue to rise in nearly all rich countries.

Boys who grow up without fathers are more likely to have trouble forming lasting¹⁸ relationships, creating a cycle of male dysfunction.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, hairdresser

What can be done? Part of the solution lies in a change in cultural attitudes.

Over the past generation, middle-class men have learned that they need to help with child care, and have changed their behaviour.

Working-class men need to catch up. Women have learned that they can be surgeons and physicists¹⁹ without losing their femininity.

Men need to understand that traditional manual jobs are not coming back, and that they can be nurses or hairdressers without losing their masculinity.

Policymakers also need to lend a hand, because foolish laws are making the problem worse.

America reduces the supply of marriageable men by locking up millions of young males for non-violent offences and then making it hard for them to find work when they get out

(in Georgia, for example, felons²⁰ are barred from feeding pigs, fighting fires or working in funeral homes).

A number of rich countries discourage poor people from marrying or cohabiting by cutting their benefits if they do.

Even more important than scrapping²¹ foolish policies is retooling²² the educational system,

which was designed in an age when most men worked with their muscles. Politicians need to recognise that boys'underachievement is a serious problem,

and set about fixing it. Some sensible policies that are good for everybody are particularly good for boys.

Early-childhood education provides boys with more structure and a better chance of developing verbal and social skills.

Countries with successful vocational systems such as Germany have done a better job than Anglo-Saxon countries of motivating non-academic boys and guiding them into jobs,

but policymakers need to reinvent vocational education for an age when trainees²³ are more likely to get jobs in hospitals than factories.

More generally, schools need to become more boy-friendly. They should recognise that boys like to rush around more than girls do:

it’s better to give them lots of organised sports and energy-eating games than to dose them with Ritalin or tell them off for fidgeting.

They need to provide more male role models: employing more male teachers in primary schools will both supply boys with a male to whom they can relate and demonstrate that men can be teachers as well as firefighters.

The growing equality of the sexes is one of the biggest achievements of the post-war era:

people have greater opportunities than ever before to achieve their ambitions regardless of their gender²⁴.

But some men have failed to cope with this new world. It is time to give them a hand.

1 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

2 chromosome   

n.染色体

参考例句：

• Chromosome material with exhibits of such behaviour is called heterochromatin.表现这种现象的染色体物质叫做异染色质。
• A segment of the chromosome may become lost,resulting in a deletion.染色体的一个片段可能会丢失，结果产生染色体的缺失。

3 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

4 estranged   

adj.疏远的，分离的

参考例句：

• He became estranged from his family after the argument.那场争吵后他便与家人疏远了。
• The argument estranged him from his brother.争吵使他同他的兄弟之间的关系疏远了。

5 flunk   

v.(考试)不及格(=fail)

参考例句：

• I will flunk him if my student doesn't learn the material in the course.如果我的学生没有掌握课程的内容，我就会让他不及格。
• If you flunk finals,you don't get the chance to do them again.如果你没通过期末考试，就没有机会再考一次了。

6 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

7 brawn   

n.体力

参考例句：

• In this job you need both brains and brawn.做这份工作既劳神又费力。
• They relied on brains rather than brawn.他们靠的是脑力，而不是体力。

8 sectors   

n.部门( sector的名词复数 )；领域；防御地区；扇形

参考例句：

• Berlin was divided into four sectors after the war. 战后柏林分成了4 个区。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Industry and agriculture are the two important sectors of the national economy. 工业和农业是国民经济的两个重要部门。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

10 entrenching   

v.用壕沟围绕或保护…( entrench的现在分词 )；牢固地确立…

参考例句：

• It has the same effect of entrenching the elite in corrupt economies. 它有着令精英陷入腐败经济的相同效应。 来自互联网
• This in entrenching on other domains. 这是在侵占别人的领土。 来自互联网

11 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。

12 unravelling   

解开，拆散，散开( unravel的现在分词 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚

参考例句：

• Nail head clamp the unravelling of nail exteriorize broken nails and clean. 钉头卡钉，拆开钉头取出碎钉并清洁。
• The ends of ropes are in good condition and secured without unravelling. 缆绳端部状况良好及牢固，并无松散脱线。

13 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。

14 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

15 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。

16 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。

17 redundant   

adj.多余的，过剩的；(食物)丰富的；被解雇的

参考例句：

• There are too many redundant words in this book.这本书里多余的词太多。
• Nearly all the redundant worker have been absorbed into other departments.几乎所有冗员，都已调往其他部门任职。

18 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

19 physicists   

物理学家( physicist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• For many particle physicists, however, it was a year of frustration. 对于许多粒子物理学家来说，这是受挫折的一年。 来自英汉非文学 - 科技
• Physicists seek rules or patterns to provide a framework. 物理学家寻求用法则或图式来构成一个框架。

20 felons   

n.重罪犯( felon的名词复数 )；瘭疽；甲沟炎；指头脓炎

参考例句：

• Aren't those the seats they use for transporting convicted felons? 这些坐位不是他们用来押运重犯的吗？ 来自电影对白
• House Republicans talk of making felons out of the undocumented and those who help them. 众议院共和党议员正商议对未登记的非法移民以及包庇他们的人课以重罪。 来自互联网

21 scrapping   

刮，切除坯体余泥

参考例句：

• He was always scrapping at school. 他在学校总打架。
• These two dogs are always scrapping. 这两条狗总是打架。

22 retooling   

v.（给…）更换工具， （给…）更换机械设备( retool的现在分词 )；改组，革新

参考例句：

• The factory is retooling to start making the new line of cars. 工厂正在重新装备以便开始制造新系列车型。 来自辞典例句
• Among her suggestions: retooling factories to focus on rebuilding America's transportation system. 她的建议包括围绕重新建设美国交通系统这个重心来重组汽车工业。 来自互联网

23 trainees   

新兵( trainee的名词复数 )； 练习生； 接受训练的人； 训练中的动物

参考例句：

• We've taken on our full complement of new trainees. 我们招收的新学员已经满额了。
• The trainees were put through an assault course. 受训人员接受了突击训练课程。

24 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。