The 19th century French philosopher Auguste Comte got it wrong: demography is not destiny.
less is more英文理解
19世纪法国哲学家奥古斯特•孔德错了：人口并不决定命运。
Population trends are some of the strongest forces in economics, affecting global prosperity, the growth of individual nations and the strength of public finances. But reducing the success of countries and regions to their trends in births, deaths and migration is a simplification too far.
各种人口趋势是经济学中最强大的一些力量，影响着全球繁荣、单个国家的增长和公共财政的实力。但是，将国家和区域的成功归结于其出生、死亡和人口移徙趋势是一种过于简单化的做法。
As the coronavirus pandemic has shown, the confident predictions in 2020 of a lockdown baby boom followed by the 2021 fear of a Covid baby bust demonstrate that demographic trends are far less stable than often imagined. Small changes in fertility, mortality and migration can have immense effects.
正如新冠疫情所显示的那样，2020年对疫情封锁会带来一波婴儿潮的自信预测，以及接下来的2021年对疫情会造成婴儿荒的担忧，表明人口趋势远没有通常想象的那么稳定。生育率、死亡率和移民方面的微小变化可以产生巨大的影响。
As recently as 2014, the official UK government projection was for the country’s population to rise to 85mn by 2080 up from 67mn in 2020, but the most recent iteration with higher death rates and lower birth rates has brought that figure down to only 72mn people.
就在2014年，英国政府的官方预测是，到2080年，该国人口将从2020年的6700万上升到8500万，但最近的高死亡率和低出生率的迭代使这一预测数字降至7200万。
The economics of demography is also easy to diagnose wrongly, especially with often-used comparisons that are typically both simple and misleading. The US economy is frequently said to be more dynamic because the nation is more youthful than Japan. In the 19 years between 2000 and 2019, the US economy grew 46 per cent compared with only 26 per cent in Japan. But the latter achieved its growth rate with a falling working age population and its per capita growth rate for everyone aged between 16 and 64 was 5 per cent higher
than that in the US over the same period.
人口经济学也很容易给出错误的判断，尤其是经常使用的一些比较，这些比较通常既简单又具有误导性。人们常说美国经济更有活力，因为这个国家比日本更年轻。在2000年至2019年的19年里，美国经济增长46%，而日本仅增长26%。但日本是在劳动年龄人口下降的情况下实现这种经济增长率的，且同期日本16岁至64岁人口的人均增长率比美国高出5%。
Demographic trends and their relation to economic dynamism are clearly more complicated than some simple statistics suggest. Overall growth rates of middle-income and rich countries are strongly linked to population growth, but living standards are not.
人口趋势及其与经济活力的关系显然比一些简单的统计数字所显示的更为复杂。中等收入和富裕国家的整体增长率与人口增长密切相关，但生活水平却不是。
Over the next 20 years, some trends are clear. Declines in fertility rates leading to a shrinking natural population in the US, less than one baby born per woman in South Korea and deep concerns about fertility across Europe will make sustained rapid economic growt
h ever harder to achieve. They will increase the burden of high levels of public and private sector debt for potentially shrinking populations and put pressure on governments to raise taxes to pay for the greater income, health and care needs of the elderly.
在接下来的20年里，一些趋势是显而易见的。生育率下降导致美国自然人口减少，韩国平均每名妇女生育婴儿不足一个，以及对欧洲各地生育率的深切担忧，将使经济持续快速增长变得更加难以实现。在人口可能不断减少的情况下，它们将增加公共和私营部门高额债务的负担，并迫使政府提高税收，以满足老年人更大的收入、健康和护理需求。
After 30 years of decline amid China’s achievement of middle-income status, global inequality is also likely to rise again. This will be driven by the fact that the only area with a rapidly growing population is sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s poorest region. UN projections show that roughly one in seven people lived south of the Sahara desert in 2019, a figure projected to rise to one in six by 2030, and to one in three by the end of the century.
在中国实现中等收入国家的过程中，全球不平等经历了30年的下降，现在很可能再次加剧。
全世界唯一人口快速增长的地区是最贫穷的撒哈拉以南非洲地区，这一事实将推动这一趋势。联合国的预测显示，2019年全世界约有七分之一的人居住在撒哈拉沙漠南部，预计到2030年这一数字将上升到六分之一，到本世纪末将上升到三分之一。
If the public finance difficulties of richer countries, amid slower growth and greater global inequality, are relatively likely consequences of current global demographic trends, the effect of ageing on global inflation is much disputed.
如果说在增长放缓和全球不平等加剧的情况下，较富裕国家的公共财政困难是当前全球人口趋势相对可能的后果，那么老龄化对全球通货膨胀的影响则存在很大争议。
In their book, The Great Demographic Reversal, authors Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan predict a sustained rise in inflation as large numbers of advanced economy residents retire and the era of cheap labour in China comes to an end. Japan’s experience of ageing alongside persistent mild deflation suggests the outcomes will be less certain, especially as ageing societies are not known for rampant consumerism.
在《人口大逆转》一书中，作者查尔斯•古德哈特和马诺吉•普拉丹预测，随着发达经济体有大量居民退休，中国廉价劳动力时代结束，通货膨胀将持续上升。日本人口老龄化和持续温和通缩的经验表明，结果将不那么确定，尤其是在老龄化社会并不以消费主义猖獗而闻名的情况下。
The world can therefore expect slower growth alongside falling fertility rates in middle and advanced economies, similar income levels per family and uncertain effects on inflation. The gaps between standards of living in rich and poor countries and the growing African population of young people will increase the incentives for migration as inequalities become ever starker.

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