Ageing in Japan (上)-经济学人双语精读-限免外刊阅读活动
⑴①“ The decline of birth rate and the ageing of Japanese society is accelerating at unprecedented speed,” warns Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister. ②Given the scale of the problem, he told The Economist this week, the government must push for “impactful policies” to tackle it right away. ③He mentions a series of reforms, intended to boost the workforce and reduce the cost of supporting the elderly. ④The Diet is currently debating a government proposal to admit 345,000 foreign workers over five years, for instance.
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重点词析
demographic /ˌdeməˈgræfɪk/
■ 1demographics [plural] information about a group such as the people who live in a particular area :
the demographics of a newspaper’s readership→一份报纸读者的统计数据
■ 2[countable] a part of the population that is considered as a group, especially by advertisers who want to sell things to that group←群体，人群〔尤指广告商推销对象〕:
the 21–40 demographic →至 40 岁的群体
outline ['aʊt.laɪn] verb transitive
■to give the main facts about something 略述，概括
•At the interview she outlined what I would be doing.面试时，她简要介绍了我将要从事的工作。
trim [trɪm] verb transitive (-mm-)
■to reduce the amount or size of something 消减，减少
•They're trying to trim their costs, so staff who leave are not being replaced.他们正试图降低成本，所以没有安排填补离职员工的空缺。
unprecedented [ʌn'pres.ɪ.den.tɪd] US [-tˌɪd] adjective
■never having happened or existed in the past 史无前例的，空前的；绝无仅有的
•This century has witnessed environmental destruction on an unprecedented scale.环境在本世纪遭到了空前的破坏。
scale [skeɪl] noun
■the size or level of something, especially when this is large 大小；规模；范围
•We don't yet know the scale of the problem.我们还不知道问题有多严重。
impactful ['impæktful]
■ adj. 有效的；有力的
diet ['daɪ.ət]
■a particular type of thing that you experience or do regularly, or a limited range of activities 程式，套路；有限的几种活动
•He was brought up on a diet of political propaganda from birth.他一出生就开始接受老一套的政治宣传
