《卫报》一个家庭是生两个好，还是再多点好？（无评论） [英国媒体]

The Guardian view on family planning policies: two kids or too many?

《卫报》对计划生育政策的看法：两个好，还是再多点好？



Crude attempts to raise and lower birthrates are unlikely to produce sustainable solutions

提高或者降低出生率这种原始操作，不太可能是可持续的解决方案。

How many children are enough? How many are too many? People’s feelings about their childhood, their partners and their jobs all shape these intimate choices. Yet in aggregate, clear patterns emerge. One of the most personal decisions a couple can make has profound repercussions for their country’s future, when it may strain resources or reduce the labour force supporting an ageing population.

一个家庭几个孩子最合适？几个孩子又太多了？人们对童年、伴侣和工作的感受都影响着自己的选择。不过总的来说还是有一定清晰模式的。一对夫妇做出的最私人决定竟然可能会对国家未来产生了深远影响，因为这个决定可能导致资源紧张，或者减少劳动力，而这些劳动力正是人口老龄化社会急需的。

This is the most common reason, though not the only one, for governments to intrude into the sex lives of their citizens. They may do so coercively, though measures such as forced sterilisation are banned under international law. They may seek to encourage procreation: Mongolia’s “First Order of Glorious Motherhood” is awarded to women who have borne six children or more.

尽管这不是政府介入公民的性生活的唯一原因，但却是最常见的原因。政府可能会采取强制绝育等措施，当然这是违反国际法的。政府也可能会鼓励生育：在蒙古国，生育六个或者更多子女的母亲会被授予“一级荣誉母亲”称号。

Reports emerged last month that China is considering scrapping all limits on family size – after a more modest shift from the “one-child” policy to a universal two-child rule three years ago failed to produce the baby boom officials had sought. Though birthrates have fallen dramatically in many Asian countries, Beijing’s strict birth control policies played a major part in turning the demographic dividend, which fuelled its economic miracle, into a demographic timebomb.

上个月有报道称，中国正在考虑取消对家庭孩子数量的所有限制。三年前中国从“独生子女”政策转向全面“二孩”政策后，并没有出现想象中的“婴儿潮”。尽管许多亚洲国家的出生率已经大幅下降，但中国严格的计划生育政策是导致中国从人口红利到人口定时炸弹发挥了重要作用。而人口红利对中国经济奇迹起到了巨大的推动作用。

Meanwhile, Egypt has declared “two is enough” as it struggles to hold back a rising birthrate. The country’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has placed population growth on a par with terrorism as the greatest danger to the country: there are almost 105 million Egyptians already, and on current trends there will be 23 million more by 2030. Egypt’s slogan mimics Singapore’s “stop at two” edict in the 1970s. How much of a role the campaign played in cutting family sizes is debatable; social and economic changes certainly had a bigger impact. But the birthrate in Singapore plummeted from 4.85 in the 1960s to 1.24 in 2015. As the government now attempts to reverse course, it has tried everything from offering cash payments for each baby and prioritised access to government-built flats to issuing pheromone-laced fragrances and arranging speed-dating events.

与此同时，埃及为了抑制不断上升的人口出生率，公开宣布“生两个足够了”。埃及总统阿卜杜勒•法塔赫•塞西把人口增长与恐怖主义称为该国面临的最大威胁。目前埃及人口将近1.05亿，按照目前的趋势，2030年埃及人口将增加2300万。埃及的口号模仿了新加坡上世纪70年代的“两个孩子就够了”的法令。这条法令在削减家庭规模方面发挥了多大的作用，目前还存在争议，但是这条法令对新加坡社会和经济变革产生的影响更大。新加坡的出生率从20世纪60年代的4.85降至2015年的1.24。为了扭转这一趋势，新加坡政府向新出生婴儿提供现金补贴，优先安排新婚夫妇入住政府建造的公寓并分发性爱香水，安排相亲活动。

China isn’t handing out perfume yet. But it too is discovering that the precise factors shaping the birthrate are both hard to pin down and predict, and slow to respond to government diktat. Punishments and benefits don’t always produce the results anticipated. Handouts don’t always do much to address the broader concerns about the future, or the sense of stress and pressure in daily life, which can discourage people from having more babies. In the US, births are at a record low despite a growing number of women of childbearing age: the decline began in 2008, the year of the financial crisis.

中国还没有发放性爱香水，但是中国也发现确定影响出生率的因素比较困难，也很难预测，在政府行政命令面前，出生率的反应迟钝。惩罚和奖励并不总是会产生预期效果。宣传无法解决人们对未来的担忧，或者是日常生活中的压力，反而会让很多人不愿意生育更多孩子。2008年金融危机以来，美国的生育率不断减少，尽管越来越多的女性达到了生育年龄，但美国生育率仍处于历史最低水平。

Population matters, but panics about both low and high levels tend to be exaggerated. The former might be better addressed through measures such as immigration and increased productivity than telling people to make more babies. In the latter case, the education and empowerment of women, improved access to contraception and family planning advice (the central pillar of the Egyptian campaign) and social support (so that children aren’t the only pension and health plan on offer) are all part of the solution.

针对人口数量的恐慌往往被夸大。人口数量少可以通过移民和提高生产率等措施来缓解，而不是告诉人们多生孩子。人口数量多的时候，可以向女性提供教育和增强女性能力，改进避孕方式，提供合理的计划生育建议（这是埃及降低人口出生率的基石）以及社会支持（孩子不是养老和健康计划的唯一依靠）。

Still, Egypt might want to proceed with care. As China and Singapore have found, an apparently desirable fall in the birthrate can have unanticipated consequences. Governments are able, in the last resort and at great human cost, to enforce maximal limits. Making people have more children is trickier.

尽管如此，埃及还是要谨慎。中国和新加坡已经发现了，政策初期出生率的下降确实令人满意，但是会带来意想不到的后果。如果政府破釜沉舟，花费大量人力成本对人口增长进行最大限制。要再想让人们生更多孩子，就要花大力气了。