每日英语：Pressure Rises on China to Scrap One-Child Policy
China's top national statistician on Friday called for changing the country's one-child policy because of the nation's shrinking pool of workers, adding to a chorus of opponents who say the policy will have long-lasting effects on the country's economic stability.
a chorus of：异口同声地
The absolute size of the working population, aged 15 to 59, fell by 3.45 million people to 937 million last year, Ma Jiantang, head of China's National Bureau of Statistics, said in a news briefing Friday.
'You ask if I am concerned about labor-force decline? Yes, I don't want to deny it,' Mr. Ma said, adding that leaders should come up with 'a more proper, scientific policy.'
Mr. Ma's comments come as many Chinese demographers call for an end to the family-planning policy, which was implemented in 1980 to manage a population explosion encouraged by Chairman Mao Zedong. They argue that propping up birth restrictions threatens the country's labor force, which has been the backbone of its economic growth in recent decades.
demographers：人口统计学家 family-planning policy：计划生育政策 prop up：支撑，支持
backbone：支柱，骨干，决心，毅力
The policy has also come under criticism for enforcement tactics including forced abortions and sterilizations. Such practices are illegal in China but sometimes enforced by local officials under pressure to meet population targets. Critics won added impetus in June when the case of Feng Jianmei, a 23-year-old woman who was forced to undergo a late-term abortion, drew nationwide outrage after photos of her and the aborted fetus appeared online.
tactics：策略，战术 abortions：堕胎 enforcement：执行，实施，强制
sterilization：灭菌，消毒，绝育 impetus：动力，促进 outrage：愤怒，愤慨，暴行，侮辱
fetus：胎儿，胚胎
Beijing has been sending mixed signals about its plans for the policy. In November, when Communist Party leaders gathered for the 18th Party Congress, leaders flagged in a blueprint document for policy makers that the government would 'steadily improve the population policy and promote long-term and balanced population growth.' Most interpreted that to mean that change would be coming, said Wang Feng, a population expert and director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy in Beijing.
But on Tuesday the head of China's National Population and Family Planning Commission dismissed speculation that the one-child policy would be scrapped in the near future. Minister Wang Xia said in a commission meeting that maintaining a low birth rate will be a top priority.
speculation：投机，推测，思索 scrap：废弃，碎片
The policy has considerable support in some quarters of China's bureaucracy. In a November public letter signed by more than 30 academics criticizing the one-child policy, Peking University professor Liang Jianzhang said one obstacle is that the government would need to find new employers for hundreds of thousands of workers at the family-planning commission.
bureaucracy：官僚主义，官僚机构
Chinese have questioned the effects of the policy on behavior. According to a recent study conducted by a team of four researchers from Australian universities, China's only children tend to be more pessimistic, more self-centered and more risk averse, traits that are likely to affect the country's labor market and have economic implications.
risk averse：规避风险 traits：特性，特质，性格
The report, published in mid-January by the journal Science, said that of the 421 men and women in the study, 23% were less likely to take on occupations that entail business risk, compared to those children born before the policy was implemented. China's only children also tend to be less competitive and less conscientious, said the study, conducted on a general population of residents of Beijing, where the policy been strictly enforced.
entail：使承担，限定继承 conscientious：认真的，尽责的
Demographers have warned for years that China's population decline could threaten its economy. The reserve of future workers, meaning those under the age of 14, made up 16.6% of the population in 2010, according to a once-a-decade census released the following year. That was down from 23% a decade earlier. China's population totaled 1.339 billion in 2010, reflecting an average annual growth rate of 0.57% over the past decade. In the decade that ended in 2000, the growth rate was 1.07%.
census：人口普查，人口调查
Social media sites, which serve as public forums in a country where political discourse in the media is tightly regulated, this week have been full of open criticism .
public forums：公共论坛 regulated：规定，管理
'Long-term adherence to family planning is actually suicide,' wrote one user of Sina Corp.'s SINA +3.34%Twitter-like Weibo microblogging service. 'If you have only one child, who will enter the workforce? Who will enter the army?'
adherence：坚持，依附，忠诚
There are a number of exceptions to the one-child policy. Minority groups are exempt, and anyone with enough money can get around penalties for having a second child. Rural families whose first child is a girl may have a second child, as can married couples who are both themselves only children.
exempt：被免除的，豁免的
Mr. Wang, a member of a group of demographers, academics and former officials who have been calling for the one-child policy to be replaced with a two-child limit, said a smaller labor force puts upward pressure on wages and will likely result in higher rates of inflation.
Many are worried that the government isn't acting quickly enough, as the fertility rate is plummeting with higher costs of living, Mr. Wang said, adding that citizens are increasingly seeking alternative lifestyles beyond the traditional family.
fertility rate：生育率 plummeting：垂直落下，骤然下跌
He said that even when allowed to have two children, many couples are opting not to due to the price of education and housing.
In Shanghai, the average number of children born per couple is 0.7, below the rate of population replacement, according to census data.
In 2010, 20% of Chinese women between the ages of 25 and 29 were unwed, compared with 5% in 1990, according to the census.
unwed：未婚的
Mr. Wang said there is wide consensus among scholars that there is no justification for the continuation of the one-child policy.