“ 英文部分來自經濟學人，譯文僅供個人研習、欣賞語言之用，謝絕任何轉載及用于任何商業用途。本譯文所涉法律后果均由本人承擔。本人同意簡書平臺在接獲有關著作權人的通知后，刪除文章?！?/h3>Depopulation in Germany
Fading echoes
德國人口衰減
回聲漸逝
Germany is running out of people, starting in the east
德國人口正在減少，東德首當其沖。
WERE it not for the graffiti on abandoned buildings, Bitterfeld-Wolfen, two towns north of Leipzig joined as one in 2007, would seem devoid of young people.
Pharmacies, physiotherapy surgeries and shops selling garden gnomes line the sleepy streets. In its heyday the place had a booming chemical industry. Today “the air is much cleaner and we can finally hang out laundry,” says an elderly local out on a morning stroll. “But many jobs were lost and so few children are left.” He points out a building that was once a school; today it is one of many care homes.
要不是看到廢棄的建筑上畫著涂鴉，比特菲爾德-沃爾芬，這個由萊比錫北部兩個小城合并而成的城市，幾乎看不到年輕人。藥店、理療館、賣花園小矮人的商店沿著毫無生氣的街道一字排開。在鼎盛時期，這里曾有蓬勃的化工產業。如今“空氣干凈多了，總算可以在外面晾衣服了”一名早起出門溜達的當地老人說，“但是許多工作機會沒有了，也沒幾個年輕人會留下來”。他指了指一所曾是學校的建筑，如今變成了眾多養老院中的一家。
Despite an influx of 1.2m refugees over the past two years, Germany’s population faces near-irreversible decline. According to predictions from the UN in 2015, two in five Germans will be over 60 by 2050 and Europe’s oldest country will have shrunk to 75m from 82m. Since the 1970s, more Germans have been dying than are born. Fewer births and longer lives are a problem for most rich countries. But the consequences are more acute for Germany, where birth rates are lower than in Britain and France.
盡管過去的兩年涌入了120萬難民，德國人口面臨著幾乎不可逆轉的萎縮。根據聯合國2015年的預測，到2050年，40%的德國人將超過60歲。歐洲老齡化最嚴重國家的人口將從現在的8200萬縮減到7500萬。自1970年以來，德國的死亡人口就超過了出生人口。在大多數富裕國家，出生率愈低，壽命愈長是一個問題。但其后果在德國表現得要更為嚴峻，德國的出生率比英國和法國都要低。
If Germany is a warning for others, its eastern part is a warning for its west. If it were still a country, East Germany would be the oldest in the world. Nearly 30 years after unification the region still suffers the aftershock from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when millions—mostly young, mostly women—fled for the west. Those who remained had record-low birth rates. “Kids not born in the ’90s, also didn’t have kids in the 2010s. It’s the echo of the echo,” says Frank Swiaczny from the Federal Institute for Population Research, a think-tank in Wiesbaden. The east’s population will shrink from 12.5m in 2016 to 8.7m by 2060, according to government statistics. Saxony-Anhalt, the state to which Bitterfeld-Wolfen belongs, is ahead of the curve.
如果說德國對其他國家來說是一個警示的話，那么東德也為西德敲響了警鐘。如果東德依然是一個國家，1989年柏林墻倒塌，當時數百萬人，絕大部分是年輕人和女人逃往西德。那些留下來的人出生率達到歷史最低點。盡管統一已近30年，該地區依然未從1989年柏林墻倒塌的余波中恢復過來?！皼]有90年代出生的孩子，因而也沒有2010年代出生的孩子。這是一個惡性循環”。供職于威斯巴登智庫聯邦人口研究院的弗蘭克·斯威亞茨先生如是說。根據政府統計，東德的人口將從2016年的1250萬縮減到2060年的870萬。比特菲爾德-沃爾芬市所在的薩克森-安哈爾特州提前進入了下降曲線。
