Figures published by the UK government in 2006 revealed that: 42% of marriages in the UK end in divorce: 24% of children grow up in single-parent families: the average number of children in a British family is 1.9. 【小题1】 Is it an endangered species?

With the average number of children in a British family falling beneath an average of 2.0, the population of the UK has been falling for quite a few years. The size of the British workforce is declining and the average age of the workforce is rising. 【小题2】

Why aren’t the British having as many children as they used to? 【小题3】 One of them is that British people are now having their children at a much older age than previously, meaning they have fewer years in which they can have children.

【小题4】 Well, houses are incredibly expensive in the UK, so many people are forced to stay with their parents early in their careers. And no one wants to start a new family when they are still living with their parents! So it’s not until people are about 30 years old that they can afford to move out, buy their own home, and then they can start to think about setting down and having children.

So what is Britain doing to try and save the British family? 【小题5】 There have been increases in Child Benefit money families can claim from the state. Also, there is an increasing amount of government subsidy (补贴) for nursery schools, so that parents do not need to pay so much for childcare. In addition. there are now laws allowing parents to take more time off work so that they can look after their children themselves rather than having to pay others to do it.

New research shows that the cost of raising a child in China is nearly seven times its GDP per capita (头数), far more than in the United States and Japan.

GDP, or gross domestic product, is the measure of the total value of goods and services in a country. GDP per capita is a measure resulting from GDP divided by the size of a nation’s total population.

The high cost of child-raising is one more difficulty Chinese policymakers face as they try to deal with quickly decreasing birth rates.

Experts warn China’s aging population will put pressure on its health and social security systems. A decrease in workers could also severely limit growth for the world’s second largest economy in the coming years.

New policies permit families to have as many as three children But China’s birth rate dropped to 7.52 births per 1,000 people in 2021. That is the lowest since the National Bureau of Statistics began recording the information in 1949.

The high costs of raising a child have caused officials in China to place restrictions (限制规定) on the private tutoring industry. Some areas have been giving couples money for having a second or third child.

The average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 in China in 2019 was 485,000 yuan for a first child. That is 6.9 times China’s GDP per capita that year. That information comes from a recent report from the YuWa Population Research Institute in Beijing.

China ranks second highest among the 13 countries included in the study. The country is behind only South Korea, which has the lowest birth rate in the world. The United States number, based on 2015 data, is at 4.11 times GDP per capita. Japan stands at 4.26, based on data from 2010.

Child raising costs are even higher in China’s major cities, reaching more than 1 million yuan in Shanghai and 969,000 yuan in Beijing. Birth rates in the two cities are even lower than the national average.

YuWa warned the decreasing birth rate would “profoundly (深刻地) affect” China’s economic growth potential, its ability to create and its welfare (福利) problems.

The study found that China would need to spend at least 5 percent of its yearly GDP to provide reasons for couples to have more children. That would include education funding (基金), special housing loan (贷款) rates and tax breaks. Other considerations include equal time for mothers and fathers to be away from their jobs and the building of more childcare centers.

CHEMICAL VERSUS ORGANIC FARMING

Chemical pesticides and artificial fertilisers have been in widespread use in farming since the middle of the 20th century. When they were first introduced, many farmers welcomed them as a great way to fight crop disease and increase production. Over time, however, what some scientists have found is that their long­term use can sometimes harm both the land and people’s health.

For example, pesticides can damage the land by killing not only harmful bacteria and insects, but also helpful ones. In addition, these chemicals can stay in the soil and underground water sources for a long time. This affects the crops grown on the land and, in turn, the animals and humans who digest them. Many people worry that these chemicals may make them ill and even cause cancer. In fact, some pesticides like DDT have been prohibited in most countries because of the damage they cause to people and the environment. As for chemical fertilisers, crops grown with them usually grow too fast to be rich in nutrition. They may look beautiful on the outside, but inside there is usually more water than essential minerals, and they often have less flavour as well.

As an alternative, some farmers have switched to organic farming, and many customers have turned to organic food when they shop at the local grocery. Organic farming is simply farming without using any chemicals. Organic farmers focus on keeping their soil rich and free of disease through natural means. For example, many organic farmers use natural waste from animals as fertiliser. This makes the soil in their fields richer in minerals. It also keeps the air, soil, water, and crops free of chemicals.

Organic farmers also use many other methods to produce rich soil. They often change the kind of crop grown in each field every year. For instance, they may grow corn or wheat in a field one year, and then grow beans there the next. Why different crops are grown is that they put important minerals back into the ground, making it ready for the next batch of crops. Organic farmers also plant diverse crops that use different depths of soil to help keep it rich. For example, peanuts grow on the ground’s surface, but many other vegetables put down deep roots. The goal of using different organic farming methods is to grow good food while avoiding damage to the environment or to people’s health.

Some people would prefer to stop the use of man­made chemicals in agriculture entirely. What keeps them from doing so is the fact that chemical farming serves the high demand for food around the world. Organic farming is nowhere near able to meet that need. Therefore, there is still a long way to find a suitable solution that puts sufficient food on the dinner table while keeping people and the environment as healthy as possible.