Why American women everywhere are delaying motherhood
为什么美国各地的女性都在推迟生育
Over the past decade, as more women of all social classes have prioritized education and career, delaying childbearing has become a broad pattern among American women almost everywhere.
在过去 10 年里，随着社会各阶层越来越多的女性把教育和事业放在首位，推迟生育几乎已经成为美国各地女性的普遍模式。
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The result has been the slowest growth of the American population since the 1930s. Since 2007, the birthrate for women in their 20s has fallen by 28%.
其结果是美国人口的增长速度达到了 1930 年代以来的最低水平。自 2007 年以来，20 多岁女性的生育率下降了 28%。
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"The story here is about young women, whose births are plummeting," said Caitlin Myers, an economist at Middlebury College who analyzed county-level birth records for The New York Times.
美国明德学院的经济学家凯特琳·迈尔斯为《纽约时报》分析了县级的生育记录，她表示：“这个情况和年轻女性有关，她们的生育率正在急剧下降。”
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A geographic analysis of Myers' data offers a clue: The birthrate is falling fastest in places with the greatest job growth — where women have more incentive to wait.
对迈尔斯的数据进行地理分析可以发现一条线索：在就业增长最快的地方，生育率下降得最快——在这些地方，女性有更多动机去推迟生育。
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In more than two dozen interviews with young women in Phoenix and Denver, some said they felt they could not afford a baby. They cited the costs of child care and housing, and sometimes student debt. Many also said they wanted to get their careers set first and expressed satisfaction that they were exerting control over their fertility — and their lives — in a way their mothers had not.
在对凤凰城和丹佛的年轻女性进行的 20 多次采访中，一些人说，她们觉得自己养不起孩子。她们提及了托儿服务和住房的成本，有些人还谈到了学生债务。许多人还表示，她们想先把自己的事业安排好，并对自己能掌控生育和生活表示满意——她们的母亲没能做到这样。
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The largest declines in births have been in unintended pregnancies and those to single mothers, Myers found. A major reason women are able to be more intentional about when to have children is better access to birth control. Long-acting reversible contraception has given women new options, and the Affordable Care Act made many of them free.
迈尔斯发现，意外怀孕和单身母亲的生育率降幅是最大的。女性能够对何时生育孩子拥有更多主动权，主要原因之一是采取避孕措施变得更加容易了。长效可逆避孕方法给了女性新的选择，而《平价医疗法案》则免除了其中许多手段的费用。
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The lower rate of unplanned pregnancy is a signal that the decline in births — despite the hand-wringing about what it portends for the nation's workforce and social safety net — could be good news for individual women.
非计划怀孕率的降低表明，出生率下降虽然给国家的劳动力和社会保障网络造成了令人担忧的影响，但对女性个体来说却可能是个好消息。
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主编：Jojo
品控：Jojo
审核：Raven
重点词汇
motherhood
/ˈmʌð.ɚ.hʊd/
n. 母亲身份
词根词缀：-hood（表示“状态”或者“时期”）
相关词汇：childhood（n. 童年）
相关词汇：likelihood（n. 可能性）
英文释义：the state of being a mother
例句：I don't feel ready for motherhood yet.（我觉得我还没准备好当妈妈。）
prioritize
/praɪˈɔːr.ə.taɪz/
v. 优先考虑（处理）
相关词汇：prior（adj. 在先的，先前的）
相关词汇：priority（n. 当务之急，优先处理的事）
例句：The vaccination programme is a priority in the fight to prevent the spread of COVID-19.（在防止新冠疫情扩散的斗争中，疫苗接种计划是当务之急。）
搭配短语：to prioritize A over B（优先考虑 A 而不是 B）
例句：He prioritizes work over everything else.
childbearing
/ˈtʃaɪldˌber.ɪŋ/
n. 生育
相关词汇：bear（v. 忍耐；生育；开（花）；结（果实））
例句：She has borne two children.（她生育了两个孩子。（borne 为 bear 的过去分词））
搭配短语：to bear fruit（结出果实；取得成果）
例句：Eventually her efforts bore fruit and she got the job she wanted.（bore 为 bear 的过去式）
搭配短语：the trend towards later marriage and childbearing（晚婚晚育的趋势）
plummet
/ˈplʌm.ɪt/
v. 暴跌，急剧下降；（突然而迅速地）坠落，栽下
例句：She plummeted to the ground.（她栽倒在了地上。）
例句：The stock market plummeted.（股市暴跌。）
incentive
/ɪnˈsen.t̬ɪv/
n. 激励，刺激
英文释义：a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something
例句：Bonus payments provide an incentive to work harder.（奖金能够激励人更加努力工作。）
cite
/saɪt/
v. 提及（原因）；引用，引述
搭配短语：to cite the dictionary
英文释义：to mention something as a reason
例句：They voted to remove a photo of the reigning monarch from their common room, citing Britain's colonial history.（他们投票决定将在位君主的肖像移出了公共休息室，理由是它象征着英国的殖民历史。）
fertility
/fɚˈtɪl.ə.t̬i/
n. 生育能力，繁殖力；（土地的）肥力
相关词汇：fertile（adj. 肥沃的，多产的；能生育的，可繁殖的）
reversible
/rɪˈvɝː.sə.bəl/
adj. 可恢复原状的，可逆的
相关词汇：reverse（v. 颠倒，使倒转；逆转，彻底转变）
例句：Writing is reversed in a mirror.（镜子里的字是倒过来的。）
搭配短语：to change something completely so that it is the opposite of what it was before
搭配短语：to reverse the trend of global warming（逆转全球变暖的趋势）
例句：Biden's executive order reversed Trump's ban on the two apps.（拜登的行政令撤销了特朗普对这两款手机应用的禁令。）
contraception
/ˌkɑːn.trəˈsep.ʃən/
n. 避孕，避孕方法
词根词缀：contra-（表示 against or opposite，“与……相反”）
相关词汇：contradict（v. 反驳，驳斥）
相关词汇：conception（n. 受孕，怀孕）
近义表达：birth control
portend
/pɔːrˈtend/
v. 预示，预告（坏事）
英文释义：to be a sign that something bad is likely to happen in the future
例句：Those thick, black clouds portend a storm.