全文翻译自BBC10月15日文章
原题：
Five charts about the fortunes of the Chinese family
作者：
Andreas Illmer
译者：冬天毛
BBC新闻（BBC News）是英国广播公司旗下负责播报新闻节目的一个部门。BBC新闻网在1997年11月上线，现在每月的访问者数超过1500万人，是英国最具人气的新闻网站之一。许多BBC电视新闻节目也在网上公开。
（维基百科）
正文：
As China's most powerful decision-makers meet to set the course of the nation for the next five years and a new generation of leaders emerges, we look at data from Chinese authorities and major surveys, to get some clues about how China's family life and society is changing.
随着中国的最高层决策者们开会制定未来五年的发展路线，并产生一代新的领导人，我们也来看一看中国官方和其他主流调查的数据，以便理解中国的家庭生活和社会都发生了什么变化。
In 2015, the government threw out its notorious one child policy which had been intended to keep population figures low but had led to a crippling gender imbalance.
2015年，中国政府废止了它臭名昭著的独生子女政策。该政策原本意在抑制人口数量，然而却导致了惨重的性别失衡。
So while now the door is open for more kids and bigger families, a look at marriage and divorce rates increasingly shows the same trend as the rest of the developed world: Marriage rates are falling while more and more people end up divorced.
结果，虽然现在通向多子女和大家庭的大门已经敞开，结婚率和离婚率所表现出的趋势却和发达国家愈发一致：结婚率下降，离婚的人却越来越多。
Marriages down, divorces up
结婚率下降，离婚率上升
（冬天毛译图）
Yet this first impression might be misleading.
然而这种第一印象或许是有误导性的。
"China has always had and is still having a much lower divorce rate than US and western European countries," Xuan Li, assistant professor of psychology at New York University Shanghai, explains.
上海纽约大学的心理学助理教授李萱解释说：“中国的离婚率历来比美国和西欧国家低得多，现在也一样。”
"A much higher percentage of mainland Chinese people marry eventually, in comparison to those in neighbouring areas and countries. So the idea that the Chinese families (and ergo, the society and nation) are falling apart is statistically ungrounded."
“和邻国邻区比起来，中国大陆人最终结婚的比例要高得多，所以说中国家庭正在（拖动社会和国家）崩塌的这种观念是没有数据支持的。”
China might have overturned its one-child policy in 2015 yet its legacy will continue to be a problem for years to come. There is even a term for unmarried men over 30: Shengnan, meaning "leftover men".
虽然中国在2015年推翻了独生子女政策，但它的遗毒在未来多年都仍将继续导致问题。甚至有一个词用来形容超过30岁还没结婚的男性：剩男，意为“剩下的男人”。
China's army of "leftover men"
中国的“剩男”大军
（冬天毛译图）
In 2015, a Chinese businessman in his 40s reportedly sued a Shanghai-based introductions agency for failing to find him a wife, having paid the company 7m yuan ($1m, £780,000) to conduct an extensive search.
2015年，据称有一名40多岁的中国商人起诉了上海的一家中介机构，原因是他付了该公司700万元（100万美元，78万英镑）进行了广撒网，但他们未能帮他找到老婆。
"China's one-child policy advanced and amplified a demographic transition," explains Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics. "Falling birth rates and an aging population have been exerting downward pressure on the labour force and thus on economic growth."
牛津经济研究院的高路易解释说：“中国的独生子女政策推进并加强了人口转型。生育率降低，人口老龄化，这给劳动力造成了下行压力，继而影响了经济增长。”
"Although the one-child policy was changed in January 2016 into a two-child policy, higher birth rates now will only show up in the labour force in around two decades," he estimates.
他估量道：“虽然独生子女政策已经在2016年1月改成了二孩政策，但现在生育率的提高得等到二十年以后才能在劳动力上体现出来。”
But higher standards of living are slowly affecting traditional gender perceptions and that in turn will have a positive effect on the gender imbalance.
然而更高的生活标准正在渐渐改变传统的性别观念，而这也将对性别失衡产生正面影响。
"The gender imbalance is already changing," Mu Zheng of the Centre for Family and Population Research at National University of Singapore told the BBC.
新加坡国立大学家庭人口研究中心的穆峥接受本报采访时表示：“性别失衡已经在改变了。”
"That's because of the relaxed fertility policy, changing attitudes, women's advanced profiles in both education and work, and with a more established social security system,"
“这要归功于生育政策的放松、人们态度的转变、女性在教育和业界的地位提高，再加上更加完备的社保系统。”
But for now, the current gender imbalance does make it hard for men to find wives.
不过就现在而言，目前的性别失衡确实使男性娶妻成了难事。
Amid the constant talk about China's housing bubble about to burst, here's a detail that stands out: Among millennials, China has a towering percentage of homeowners, a different league it seems from European countries or the US.
在中国房产泡沫即将爆裂的老生常谈之外，有这样一条突出的细节：中国的年轻人拥有住房的比例鹤立鸡群，远高于欧洲国家和美国年轻人的水平。
Chinese millenials twice as likely to own
their own home compared to the U.S.
中国年轻人有房比例达美国两倍
While the above data from HSBC largely covers urban China, it still illustrates a crucial point: parents are trying whatever they can to equip their sons with some added extras to woo women into wedlock.
虽然以上来自汇丰银行的数据主要覆盖的是中国城市，但它还是揭示了一个关键问题：父母们正在倾其所能给他们的儿子另添饶头，以招揽女性与他们结婚。
"It is the custom that husbands will provide a home," Dr Jieyu Liu, deputy director of the SOAS China Institute, told the BBC in April when HSBC released the data.
当汇丰银行在四月公布以上数据时，亚非学院中国研究院副院长刘婕妤（音）博士曾在采访中对本报表示：“丈夫提供住房是习俗。”
"Many love stories fail to turn to marriage if the men fail to provide a marital house."
“很多感情未能转成婚姻，就是因为男性拿不出婚房来。”
So once charm, luck or a property have helped China's singles get hitched - what is life like for families?
那在中国的单身汉们靠魅力、运气或房产结婚后，家庭生活又是怎样的呢？
Almost as many phones as people
手机数和人
数
差不多
China's average income has seen a steady rise, both in rural and in urban areas. While the relative expenses on food have dropped significantly over the past decade, the money spent on things like health, clothes or transport has gone up. The same goes for communications. The surge in mobile phones illustrates that point.
中国的人均收入不论城镇还是乡村地区都经历了稳定的上涨。虽然饮食上的相对开销在过去10年显著下降，但人们在医疗、服装和交通等方面的开销提高了，而通讯也是一样，移动电话的猛增表明了这一点。
Smartphones are not just another communications expense - the WeChat app for instance is so woven into everyday routines that life without a phone is virtually unthinkable.
智能手机不仅仅是一种通讯开销——例如，微信这款应用与日常生活的交点如此之多，以至于没有手机的生活已几乎无法想象。
"WeChat is designed as an app that is like a toolkit for life, sort of a digital Swiss Army knife," Beijing-based tech analyst Duncan Clark of ABI Research explains.
市场研究公司ABI Research在北京的技术分析师邓肯·克拉克解释说：“微信在设计上就像是生活的工具箱一样，有点像是数码版的瑞士军刀。”
He says consumers have been embracing the convenience of it covering everything from paying utility bills, cashless payments in shops, taxis and bike rentals, money transfers and of course - communication.
他表示，消费者欣然接受了微信提供的这种一条龙式的便利：交水电费、无现金购物、打出租车、租自行车、转账等等；当然，还有通信。
Higher incomes translate into more money spent on children's education and recent years have shown a steady rise in parents sending their children overseas to study. What's more, they are coming back.
收入的增高转化成了更高的子女教育开销，而在近年，家长们将子女送去国外学习的数量也在稳定增高，而且你猜怎么着——他们完事还要回来。
Looking beyond the border
放眼境外
"A large proportion of these students are returning to China, with 433,000 having returned in 2016," explains Rajiv Biswas, APAC chief economist at analytics firm IHS Markit.
分析公司IHS Markit的亚太首席经济师拉吉夫·比斯瓦斯解释说：“这些学生里有很大一部分都要回中国，2016年就回了43万3千人。”
This rapidly growing pool of Chinese graduates with international degrees and experience of living abroad will make the next generation of Chinese business and government leaders "very international in their thinking and understanding of other cultures, which will be increasingly important as China assumes the mantle of the world's largest economy in about a decade".
拥有国际学位和国外生活经验的中国毕业生数量的飞速增多，将使中国的下一代商业和政府领袖们“在思想和对其他文化的理解方面非常国际化，而随着中国十年内获得世界最大经济体的地位，这一点将愈发重要。”
And while a degree from a European or US university is likely to boost your chances on the job market - it might also drive up your chances of bagging the right partner.
而欧洲或美国大学的学位不仅能增大你在求职市场上的机会，或许还能在求偶方面助你一臂之力呢。
全文到此结束
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