用户中心
Faced with a soaring divorce rate, China introduced a rule last year to keep unhappy marriages together by forcing couples to undergo a 30-day “cooling off” period before finalizing a divorce.
面对飙升的离婚率，中国去年出台了一项规定，强迫夫妻在办理离婚手续前度过30天的“冷静期”来维持不幸福的婚姻。
The rule appears to have worked, according to government statistics released this week, which show a steep drop in divorce filings in 2021.
这一规定似乎奏效了。根据本周公布的政府统计数据，2021年离婚申请急剧下降。
Local officials have hailed the new rule as a success in the country’s effort to grow families and curb a demographic crisis threatening China’s economy. But it has a much bigger challenge to reckon with: Fewer and fewer Chinese citizens are getting married in the first place.
地方官员称赞这项新规定是国家在扩大家庭和遏制正威胁中国经济的人口危机方面取得的成功。但它面临着一个更大的挑战：首先，结婚的中国公民就越来越少。
-
本段语言知识点积累
-
undergo 经历，经受，遭受if you undergo a change, an unpleasant experience etc, it happens to you or is done to you，比如说：•The country has undergone massive changes recently这个国家最近经历了巨大的变化。•She has been undergoing tests since Monday.从星期一起她一直在做各种检查。
-
finalize v.(尤指经与他人讨论)最后确定，最终敲定；If you finalize something such as a plan or an agreement, you complete the arrangements for it, especially by discussing it with other people.举个例子：We are saying nothing until all the details have been finalised.在所有细节最后确定下来之前我们无可奉告。
-
hail sb / sth as sth 把…称赞为，把…誉为:to describe someone or something as being very good，比如说：•Lang's first film was immediately hailed as a masterpiece.朗格的第一部电影立即就誉为一部杰作。•The new service has been hailed a success.新推出的服务被认为很成功。
Along with the decline in the divorce rate, the number of marriage registrations plunged to a 36-year low in 2021. The fall in marriages has contributed to a plummet in birthrates, a worrying sign in China’s rapidly graying society and a phenomenon more familiar in countries like Japan and South Korea.
除了离婚率下降，2021年结婚登记数量骤降至36年来的最低点。结婚人数下降导致出生率直线下降，在迅速老龄化的中国社会，这是一个令人担忧的迹象，这种现象在日本、韩国等国家更为常见。
Many young Chinese people say they would prefer not to get married, as a job becomes harder to find, competition more fierce and the cost of living less manageable.
许多中国年轻人表示他们宁愿不结婚，因为工作越来越难找，竞争越来越激烈，生活成本越来越难以承受。
“I do not want to get married at all,” said Yao Xing, a 32-year-old bachelor who lives in the city of Dandong, near China’s border with North Korea. His parents are pressuring him to get married and have children, but Mr. Yao said his job buying and selling kitchenware had made it hard to keep a steady income, which he sees as a prerequisite to marriage. Besides, he added, many women don’t want to get married anyway.
“我完全不想要结婚，”住在中朝鲜边境附近丹东市的32岁单身人士姚兴说。他的父母一直在向他施压，要求他结婚生子，但姚兴说，买卖厨具的工作让他很难保持稳定的收入，他认为这是结婚的先决条件。此外，他还说，反正许多女性都不想结婚。
“I think more and more people around me don’t want to get married, and the divorce rate and marriage rate in China have dropped significantly, which I think is an irreversible trend,” Mr. Yao said.
“我觉得我身边不想结婚的人越来越多，中国离婚率和结婚率大幅度下降，我觉得是一个不可扭转的趋势，”姚兴说。
Rising gender inequality at work and at home has caused many women to think twice about marriage as well. Better educated and more financially independent than their mothers, younger women have watched as their economic position has changed while society’s view of them has not.
工作和家庭中日益严重的性别不平等导致许多女性也对婚姻三思而后行。年轻女性比她们的母亲受过更好的教育，在经济上更独立。她们发现，虽然自己的经济地位发生了变化，但社会对她们的看法却没有改变。
-
本段语言知识点积累
-
pressure sb to do sth 逼着某人做某事，给某人施压使得做某事，这里的pressure是动词，表示if you pressure someone to do something, you try forcefully to persuade them to do it.比如说：Don't let yourself be pressured into making a hasty decision. 不要勉强自己仓促作出决定。
-
prerequisite /priː'rekwɪzɪt/ 先决条件；前提；必要条件；If one thing is a prerequisite for another, it must happen or exist before the other thing is possible. 比如说：Good self-esteem is a prerequisite for a happy life.良好的自尊是幸福生活的前提。•A reasonable proficiency in English is a prerequisite for the course.掌握一定程度的英语是学习这门课程的先决条件。
-
financially independent 经济独立地
The couples who do get married in China often prefer not to have children, citing worries about the rising cost of education and the burden of taking care of aging parents while also having young children. Some are delaying getting married, choosing instead to live together without the ceremony and, often, without the children.
在中国，结了婚的夫妇往往不愿生孩子，他们担心教育成本上升，以及上有年迈的父母、下有年幼的孩子都需要照顾。有些人推迟结婚，选择不举行婚礼而同居，并且通常不要小孩。
“The relatively lower marriage rates coupled with rising divorce rates might signal the deinstitutionalization of marriage, which means more people might choose cohabitation over marriage,” said Ye Liu, a senior lecturer in the department of international development at King’s College London.
“相对较低的结婚率加上不断上升的离婚率可能预示着婚姻的去制度化，这意味着更多的人可能会选择同居而不是婚姻，”伦敦国王学院国际发展系高级讲师刘烨说。
