台湾年轻女性不惧当“剩女”

        With one of the world's lowest birth rates, Taiwan faces the prospect of a rapidly aging population without a young workforce to support it. The government is scrambling for solutions, with experts pushing measures such as workplace day care, tax breaks for parents and generous maternity leave. But for a generation of Taiwanese women who embraced higher education (more women than men have college degrees) and demanding careers, the age-old stigma of being unmarried has given way to a celebration of single life that government incentives won't easily overturn.

　　台湾的人口出生率居全世界最低行列，正面临人口的快速老龄化，缺乏年轻的劳动力来支撑社会发展。政府想方设法寻求解决方案，专家纷纷出招，如在工作场所设立托儿所、给有小孩的家庭减税，以及延长产假等。然而，对学历更高（现在大学学历的台湾女性比男性多）、更注重事业发展的新一代台湾女性来说，长期以来对大龄“剩女”的指指点点已经被坦然接受单身生活的潮流所取代，政府的鼓励措施无法轻易扭转这一趋势。

　　Government officials also are playing the patriotism card, proposing that children should be seen as a 'public asset.' Peter Hu, director of the National Immigration Agency, says parents create children not just for themselves, but for Taiwan. Such rhetoric seems unlikely to sway Taiwanese weighing the pros and cons of parenting. What's more, those college-educated women who do marry now don't do so until they're 32 on average, meaning their biological window to reproduce is relatively short. (By comparison, the average marrying age in Japan for women of all educational levels was 28.5 as of 2008.)

　　政府官员还在打爱国主义牌，提倡把孩子视为“公共财产”。台湾内政部入出国及移民署(National Immigration Agency)代理副署长胡景富说，父母生孩子不光是为自己，还是为台湾；但这种花言巧语似乎很难在台湾人权衡是否生孩子的问题时成为一种砝码。此外，有大学学历的台湾女性的平均结婚年龄为32岁，也就是说她们的生育适龄期相对缩短。（相比之下，截止到2008年，有大学学历的日本女性的平均结婚年龄为28.5岁。）

　　Some unattached female 30-somethings refer to themselves, half-joking, as 'loser dogs,' after a 2004 Japanese book on the same phenomenon in that country. In Taiwan, their spending power hasn't gone unnoticed: A real-estate company recently advertised a small, ritzy apartment as ideal for 'loser dogs.' This economic muscle is part of what gives women the freedom to embrace the single life.

　　30岁以上的未婚女性半开玩笑地称自己是“败犬”，这个名字来源于2004年日本出版的一本讲述同一现象的书。在台湾，该群体的消费能力并没有被忽视。一家房地产公司最近在给一种小户型豪华公寓打广告，称其专门为“败犬族”量身定做。这种经济能力也是女性可以自由选择单身生活的原因之一。