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.

According to the recent (最近的) report, five of the ten most populous (人口众多的) countries are in Asia, three in the Americas, and one each in Europe and Africa. With over 1.4 billion people, China has the largest population in the world. India comes in second with 1.355 billion, and the United States comes in third with around 328 million. Indonesia comes in fourth and Pakistan comes in fifth of the world’s most populous countries.

However, China is facing a serious aging population problem now. To solve the problem, China began relaxing its family planning policy (生育政策) in 2012. It said that if either one of the couples was the only child of their parents, they could have two children in 2013. And in 2016, China further relaxed the two-child policy (二胎政策) to all couples. In 2021, China allowed all couples to have three children.

However, a good family planning policy alone is not enough. The government should find ways to lower the cost of raising children and improve the elderly care services. Also, a friendly social and cultural environment should be provided for couples who want to have three children.