[恒心][好卷速递]四川省成都外国语学校2012届高三第六次月考英语(2)

D. It is estimated that 95% of the population in Hong Kong own an Octopus card

B

Many people would interpret “The American dream” as “living like an American”—a two-story house with a white picket fence; a family with two cars; and two children.

However, the economic situation is now affecting the American way of life for 4.4 million people living in the US, according to new census (人口普查) data. “It’s going to have a long-term impact and to say it’s going to end is optimistic, ” says Cheryl Russell, former editor-in- chief of American Demographics magazine. “I’m more pessimistic that this is the new normal.” So what is the new normal?

*Marrying later. The average age of the first marriage has increased to 28.7 for men and 26.7 for women, up from 27.5 and 25.9 respectively in 2006. At the same time, fewer people are getting married. If the marriage rate had stayed the same as in 2006, there would have been about 4 million more married people in 2010.

*Fewer babies. There were 200,000 fewer births among women aged 20 to 34 in 2010 compared with two years before. This was despite the fact that the number of women of childbearing age had gone up by more than 1 million. “The recession(衰退) is the likely cause ,” says Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institue, “Economic fertility (生育能力)” because women delay …in uncertain times.

*Breaking up is harder. The number of divorces has been falling for 25 years as people wait longer or choose to live together before they get married. There were about 65,000 fewer divorces in 2010 than in 2008, a 7 percent decrease.

*Crowd living. Unemployment is forcing more people to live together. The number of households where people lived with “other relatives” climbed from 6.7 percent in 2006 to 7.2 percent in 2010.

*Going public. Private school enrollment decreased from 13.6 percent in 2006 to 12.8 percent in 2010.

*Fewer cars. The percentage of households without a car rose to 9.1 percent against 8.8 percent in 2006. The percent-age of households with two or more cars fell from 58 percent to 57.1 percent.

*Driving solo. When people are not working, they don’t carpool. The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in employment dropped greatly in all but one of the 50 largest metropolitan (大城市的) areas. That has helped push the share of people driving to work alone from 76 percent in 2006 to 76.6 percent in 2010. Ride-sharing is down a full percentage point, to 9.7 percent.

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