fairey经济学人 亚洲女性们拒绝婚姻

2021年1月22日发(作者：pull)
Women are rejecting marriage in Asia. The social implications are serious
亚洲女性们拒绝婚姻，带来严重社会影响


Aug 20th 2011 | from the print edition


TWENTY years ago a debate erupted about whether there were specific “Asian values”
.
Most attention focused on dubious claims by autocrats that democracy was not among
them. But a more intriguing, if less noticed, argument was that traditional family values
were stronger in Asia than in America and Europe, and that this partly accounted for Asia’s
economic success. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore and
a keen advocate of Asian values, the Chinese family encouraged “scholarship and hard
work and thrift and deferment of present enjoyment for future gain”.


20
年前爆发过一场是否存在特定
“
亚洲 价值观
”
的争论。争论的焦点主要集中在亚洲独裁者
们关于民主并不在其中的含糊论调 上。但是一个也许不那么惹眼却更让人感兴趣的说法是，
亚洲人的传统家庭观念比美洲和欧洲人要强，而 这也是亚洲经济取得如此成功的部分原因。
新加波前总理李光耀积极倡导亚洲价值观，用他的话说，中国 家庭鼓励
“
求知上进，辛勤工
作，勤俭节约，吃苦在前，享乐在后
”
。


On the face of it his claim appears persuasive still. In most of Asia, marriage is widespread
and illegitimacy almost unknown. In contrast, half of marriages in some Western countries
end in divorce, and half of all children are born outside wedlock. The recent riots across
Britain, whose origins many believe lie in an absence of either parental guidance or filial
respect, seem to underline a profound difference between East and West.

表面来看，
李光耀的说法现在似乎依旧盛行。
在亚洲大部分地区，
婚姻是很普 遍的现象，非
婚生子女几乎无人知晓。
相比之下，
在一些西方国家，大约半数的婚姻以 离婚告终，而且有
一半的孩子是非婚生的。
很多人认为英国近期的暴乱，
就是由于父母 缺乏教导或是子女不孝，
这似乎也凸显了东西方之间的巨大差异。


Yet marriage is changing fast in East, South-East and South Asia, even though each region
has different traditions. The changes are different from those that took place in the West in
the
second
half of
the
20th century.
Divorce,
though
rising
in
some countries, remains
comparatively rare. What’s happening in Asia is a flight from marriage (see article).


然而，
在东亚、
东南亚和南亚，
尽 管各自有着不同的传统，人们对待婚姻的态度正迅速发生
改变。这些变化和
20
世纪下 半叶西方的变化不同。尽管某些亚洲国家的离婚率在上升，但
相对来说还很低。亚洲的变化在于人们不愿 意结婚。
（见文章）


Marriage rates are falling partly because people are postponing getting hitched. Marriage
ages have risen all over the world, but the increase is particularly marked in Asia. People
there now marry even later than they do in the West. The mean age of marriage in the
richest places
—
Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong
—
has risen sharply in the past
few decades, to reach 29-30 for women and 31-33 for men.

结婚率正在降低，
这部分是由于人们推迟走进婚姻。
全世界的结婚年龄都有所上升，
但 是亚
洲最为突出。现在亚洲人甚至比西方人结婚还晚。过去几十年，亚洲最富裕地区
——
日本，
台湾，韩国，香港的平均结婚年龄已大幅上升：女性是
29
至
30< br>岁，男性是
31
至
33
岁。


A
lot
of
Asians
are
not
marrying
later
.
They
are
not
marrying
at
all.
Almost
a
third
of
Japanese women in their early 30s are unmarried; probably half of those will always be.
Over one-fifth of Taiwanese women in their late 30s are single; most will never marry. In
some places, rates of non- marriage are especially striking: in Bangkok, 20% of 40-44-year
old women are not married; in Tokyo,
21%; among university graduates of that age in
Singapore, 27%. So far
, the trend has not affected Asia’s two giants, China and India. But
it is likely to, as the economic factors that have driven it elsewhere in Asia sweep through
those two countries as well; and its consequences will be exacerbated by the sex- selective
abortion
practised
for
a
generation
there.
By
2050,
there
will
be
60m
more
men
of
marriageable age than women in China and India.

很多亚洲人不是晚婚，
而是根本不打算结婚。
三十 出头的日本女性中，
有近三分之一的人还
没结婚，也许她们中有一半人将永远不结婚。奔四的台 湾女性中，有五分之一以上是单身，
大多数不会结婚了。某些地区的不婚率尤其高的惊人：在曼谷，有< br>20%
的
40
至
44
岁大龄
女性没有结婚；在东京这 一比例是
21%
。新加坡这一年龄段且拥有大学学历的女性中，有
27%
的人 没有结婚。目前为止，这一趋势还没有影响到亚洲的两大巨头，中国和印度。但
是以后可能会有影响，< br>因为导致亚洲其他国家出现这一现象的经济因素，
也已经席卷了中国
和印度。而且由于这 两国存在选择性堕胎现象，会使得影响更加严重。到
2050
年，中国和
印度的适婚男 女中，男性会比女性多
6000
多万。


The joy of staying single
单身的乐趣


Women are retreating from marriage as they go into the workplace. That’s partly because,
for a woman, being both employed and married is tough in Asia. Women there are the
primary caregivers for husbands, children and, often, for ageing parents; and even when in
full-time
employment,
they
are
expected
to
continue
to
play
this
role.
This
is
true
elsewhere
in
the
world,
but
the
burden
that
Asian
women
carry
is
particularly
heavy.
Japanese women, who typically work 40 hours a week in the office, then do, on average,
another 30 hours of housework. Their husbands, on average, do three hours. And Asian
women who give up work to look after children find it hard to return when the offspring are
grown.
Not
surprisingly,
Asian
women
have
an
unusually
pessimistic
view
of
marriage.
According
to
a
survey
carried
out
this
year
,
many
fewer
Japanese
women
felt
positive
about their marriage than did Japanese men, or American women or men.

由于女性有了自己的工作，她们对于婚姻 打了退堂鼓。这部分是由于，对于亚洲女性来说，
兼顾工作和家庭非常困难。
女性担负着照顾丈 夫孩子，
通常还有年迈父母的重任，
即使有一
份全职的工作，
她们还是要继续 担此重任。
诚然全世界女性都是如此，
然而亚洲女性的负担
尤其沉重。日本女性通常每 周工作
40
小时，此外平均还要做
30
小时的家务。而她们的丈