经济学人赏析-日本人口问题（6.7段）

Mr Abe also wants people to “remain active without retirement throughout their lives”.
His government is likely to raise the retirement age for civil servants from 60 to 65, and to encourage companies to do the same.
As it is, many companies have raised their retirement ages or taken to rehiring retired workers, often on a parttime basis.
Fully 23% of over-65s work; they constitute a much bigger share of the workforce than in other rich countries (see chart).
Mr Abe plans to bolster this trend by increasing the public pension for those who agree to start drawing it later than they are currentlyentitled to.
In the long run, the prime minister hopes, robots and artificial intelligence will help ease the labour shortage. “I do think that we will need fewer jobs because of higher productivity.”

段落解析

除了上文中提到的通过移民和让更多女性进入职场，安倍还计划通过提高退休年龄，来应对日本人口衰减带来的劳动力短缺问题。安倍政府准备把公务员的退休年龄从60岁提高到65岁，很多公司也开始推行延迟退休提。目前日本65岁以上人群中有23%的人还在工作，比例远远高于其他富裕国家。为了鼓励这种趋势，安倍计划提高延迟退休的人的公共养老金。而从长远来看，安倍寄希望于机器人和人工智能带来生产率的提高，来彻底缓解日本的劳动力短缺。
本段最后提到的安倍寄希望于机器人和人工智能来缓解劳动力短缺，个人还比较赞同这种想法。

词句精读

1.Likely
adj./adv. has a good chance of being the case or of coming about
常用短语： be likely to do sth.有可能做某事。
比如看外面的情况，雨雪天气可能还会持续几天。
The raining day is likely to last for a few days.

2.数据图表的解读

image.png

Fully 23% of over-65s work; they constitute a much bigger share of the workforce than in other rich countries (see chart).
文中没有直接以文读图，而是用图文互补的方式，表达日本65岁以上还在工作的人已经占比很大了。文中先说在65岁以上的人群中，日本有23%的人还在工作，图表则是各国65岁以上人群在国内总劳动力的占比，进一步扩大影响范围说明在国内整体劳动力市场中，日本65岁以上工作人群数量的情况。

3.bolster
vt. support and strengthen
这里的句型可以直接套用：sb. plans to bolster sb./sth. by doing sth. 文中安倍通过增加退休金来鼓励延迟退休。我们可以说：老板发了一大笔奖金来鼓励员工继续努力：
The boss hopes to bolster his staff keeping their efforts by offering a large bonus.
妈妈准备周末给小明买他想要了很久的糖果，奖励他在学校的良好表现：
Mother plans to bolster Xiao Ming by buying him the dreaming candy this weekend.

Getting older people to work for longer is especially beneficial to the government’s finances, since it leads both to higher tax revenue and lower spending on pensions.
Mr Abe’s tweaks are the latest in a series of changes intended to make the pension system more affordable.
But the government is always playing catch-up, as the ageing of the population and shrinking of the workforce accelerate.
It reckons social-welfare costs will rise by more than half by 2040, from ¥121trn ($1.06trn) to ¥190trn.

段落解析

延迟退休对政府的财政尤其有利：一方面增加了税收，另一方面又能降低养老金的支出。而安倍近期的一系列调整正是为了防止日本的养老系统崩溃。但是政府的举措总是落后于日本人口老龄化和劳动力萎缩的速度。据估计，到2040年，社会福利成本将增加一半以上。

词句精读

1.A is especially beneficial to B,since it leads both to C and D.
本段第一句提到延迟退休对政府财政有点妙，一石二鸟：增加收入还能减少支出。手段还是不错的，一个举动达到两个目的，句型套用起来也是很顺的。做什么对什么特别有利，既能怎样又能怎样（怎么想都觉得有点贼）。
比如最近追的剧中：放出老板生病的假消息对公司度过难关特别有用，一方面为自己争取了时间，另一方面放松了竞争对手的警惕心。
Let out false information about the boss's illness is especially beneficial to their company，since it leads both to longer time for itself and lower vigilance of competitors.

2.play catch-up
这也是一个有趣的表达，在句中看起来就像是政府永远在玩猫和老鼠的游戏，动画中的猫和永远也追不上的老鼠。
生活中也有很多无奈的时候，可以用起来。比如信息焦虑，职场中的我们,感觉一天都是追在信息的后面疲惫不堪，回不完的邮件，看不完的新消息…
In the workplace，we always spend much of our day just playing catch-up to news,emails,new messages…

3. 数据的表达
“It reckons social-welfare costs will rise by more than half by 2040, from ¥121trn ($1.06trn) to ¥190trn.”
本段最后一句的数值表达套路：It reckons A will rise by B by 2040, from C to D. 据估计，到2040年，A将会上升到B，从现在的具体数值C到2040年的数值D。
例句：预计到2050年，月球旅行的人数将会上升到十倍以上，从现在的3000多人到3万人以上。（瞎扯的数据%>_<%）
It reckons the number of people traveling to the moon will rise by more than tenfold by 2050, from more than 3000 to more than 30,000.