TOEFL Listening Section

Lecture Transcript

Professor: Good morning everyone, now in today's lesson I'd like to talk about Population Growth, and in particular, fertility rate. Now, can anyone here define fertility rate?

Charlene: Er, is it the number of births in a population, measured per thousand people per year?

Professor: Oh, er no, that's what we call the birth rate. The number of children born in a year, per thousand people. No, the fertility rate is the average number of children born per woman in her lifetime, that is, if she lives beyond her child-bearing years. Now, do you think the British fertility level is higher or lower than it was... say twenty years ago?

Charlene: I think it's lower, because these days women are far more focused on their careers than they used to be.

Professor: Well, that point is certainly true, but actually, fertility levels in Britain are relatively high at the moment. In 2008, it was 1.96; that means that on average, each woman gives birth to 1.96 children, and in 2009 it was only slightly lower, at 1.94. The last time fertility rates were this high was back in 1973. In the UK currently, the highest rate of fertility is in Northern Ireland, where the rate is 2.04, and the lowest is in Scotland, where the rate is just 1.77.

Charlene: I don't understand. How come fertility rate is going up? Women are just as career-driven these days as they were thirty years ago.

Professor: Well, the reason is that during the 1990s women really started to delay having families, and that was the reason for the decrease in birth rate then. Now those women are in their thirties and early forties, and they are starting to have families. So that's why the birth rate is going up.

Charlene: Oh, I see, so it's not actually as if people are actively choosing to have more children than they used to.

Professor: Yes, that's right Charlene. The number of children per family is continuing to fall. Women who are currently in their 70s had an average of 2.4 children. Those in their sixties had 2.2, those in their fifties had 2.0, and the current figure is 1.9. Actually, this figure isn't due to more families choosing to have only one child, although that certainly is occurring, it's mainly because of the increasing number of women who have no children at all. This figure was 1 in 10 among the age group who are now 65, but now 1 in 4 women in their mid-40s are childless.

Charlene: I heard that the fertility rate in Europe is, like, really low. 1.3 or something.

Professor: That's right, Charlene. It is. It's far below the replacement level. Can you tell me what replacement level means? No? It's the number of births you need to keep the population constant.

Professor: So, we've already mentioned that women are waiting before having children because of their careers. Why else is fertility rate generally decreasing?

Charlene: I think they have fewer children because they're so expensive. I mean, I heard one report that said it costs £200,000 a year to raise a child here. But I find that difficult to believe. People's standard of living is far higher now than it used to be a hundred years ago when families had eight or nine kids.

Professor: That's very true, but these days people's expectations tend to be higher. Parents want their children to have the best opportunities in life, so they're prepared to pay to develop their children's talents.

Charlene: Yes, I heard that in China, where they're easing off some of the rules of the one-child policy and allowing some couples to have two, many parents are still choosing to have one. They say it's just too expensive. But, you know, I reckon that, with all this parental micromanagement that's going on these days, parents only have the time to manage one or two children.

Professor: That's a good point. So, now I'd like to look at some different organisations, and examine what they believe about the current population issues...