SECTION ONE

READING, WRITING, LISTENING AND INTERPRETING

UNIT ONE

The Way We Live Now

LEAD-IN

A. Look at the following statements drawn from statistics about Britain.

Are you surprised by any of the statements?

How does the situation in Britain compare with that in your country?

1. The population of Britain was 60 million in 2005.

2. Life expectancy at birth is now 72 for men and 78 for women.

3. Britain has more people aged over 60 than any other European nation.

4. 63% of homes are owner-occupied, the number of people owing their own homes has almost doubled and 10% of the popula­tion live alone.

5. Most people work 35-40 hours in a five-day week, with over 10% of the workforce being self-employed.

6. Women comprise 43% of the workforce and the percentage of women working outside the home is more than 50%.

7. 946,000 people left Britain and 1.1 million came to stay.

8. The non-white population is 2.4 million.

9. Children start school at the age of 5 and must stay at school until the age of 16.

10. Weekly attendance at Church of England services is 1.1. million and there are 1.5 million Muslims in the UK.

11. Cars, motorcycles and taxis account for 83% of all journeys.

uses and coaches take less than 10% of all passengers, and trains only 7%.

12. The major killer diseases in Britain are heart and cancer.

Life in the 90s

What was life in the later part of the 20^th century like? What were people's priorities in the northern and southern hemispheres? Discuss your ideas before looking through the following.

socialism	to be uncaring	to be environmentally friendly
capitalism	the rat race	the rat race living
consumerism	a/the welfare state	the quality of life
to look after number one	an image	the way of life
to opt out of	a status symbol	the cost of living
the haves and the have-nots	a lifestyle
to be materialistic	to 'go green'

Choose a word or phrase from the above vocabulary bank, changing the form where necessary, to complete the following text. What features of the 90s XX century seem to you analogous with those of the first decade of the XXI century?

How was life in the 90s different from life in the 80s? Certainly in Europe, life has changed a great deal in recent years. We have seen the end of the communist states, but this does not automatically mean that (1) ..... has triumphed. Most of the Eastern European countries are trying not to hold on to their (2).....principles but still believe in the (3).........., where government supports the old, sick and unemployed.

In Western Europe, the USA and Japan, the 80s were dominated by money and the rise of the individual. Those of us with money have become even more greedy and (4) ...... But at the same time we have seen a growing division between the (5) ..... and (6)......The attitude towards those people who cannot take part in the consumer boom is very often an (7) .....one. The philosophy of the 80s seems to have been rather self-centred, a case of (8) ..................... There are some who have reacted against this kind of society and have decided to (9) ........ . They have decided that their (10)..... of (11)…. is more important than their (12).....of (13)... . They have chosen to live more simply and not to worry about their (14) .... ,

nor about acquiring the latest (15)...........This kind of (16).....became more

common in the 90s.

One change which has been noticeable in our (17).....of (18)

is our awareness of environmental problems and how these affect our

daily life. Many consumers are (19) '..... ....' and only buying (20).....products. Is this reflecting real concern or is it just another fashion?

Too Many or Too Few?

The study of the population is known as demography. The fol­lowing report is about the effects of demographic changes on so­ciety. Read each paragraph and write a brief heading for it.

EXAMPLE Paragraph 1 The relationship between demography and politics.

1. Demography, the size of population, the speed at which it changes and its age structure, is an important factor in determining how a country's economy will perform and what economic policies a government should pursue,

2. For example, in a country where the population is growing very fast, the economy has to grow quickly if the income per head is not to fall. In a country like South Africa, where the population is ris­ing by about 2.7 per cent a year, politicians are worried about gene­rating enough extra national income to at least match that level of in­crease. In Britain, however, the population has grown by less than 2 per cent over the last 10 years. Therefore almost all the economic growth in Britain during that time has meant higher average income per head, even if the distribution of income is unequal.

3. It is also important to know how many of the people in the to­tal population will be economically active. Some will be children and therefore too young to work. Some will be elderly and will have re­tired. It is only the group in the middle - say between the ages of 16 and 60 or 65 - who are available for work.

4. The very young, schoolchildren, students and people who have retired are known as the «dependent» population, because they depend on other people or the state for their income.

5. The relationship between the number of dependent people hose who are of working age is known as the «dependency ratio»:

the greater the proportion of dependent people, the higher the ratio. This ratio is sometimes referred to as the «welfare burden»; it increas­es if more people stay on at school or go to college. It will also in­crease if people retire earlier and live for longer after they have retired.

6. Over the last 50 years, the dependency ratio in Britain has stayed roughly the same: as a percentage of the population of work­ing age, the dependent population has been between 55 and 65 per cent.

7. But people are now living longer. In 1931, a man's life expec­tancy was 60. Now it is 73 in Britain. So there will be more old people who will need pensions provided for them through income taxes paid by those at work.

8. The dependency ratio is not a completely accurate measure of how many non-working people need to be supported by those with jobs. After all, not every person between 16 and 65 has paid em­ployment. In many societies it is frowned upon for married women -particularly those with young children - to have jobs.

9. Attitudes have changed in recent years. Yet the «participation rate» - the proportion of women of working age who do go out to work - is still much lower than that of men. 94 per cent of British men aged 25 to 44 are in the labour force; the proportion of women is 72 per cent. And only one woman in eight with a child under five years old has a full-time job.

Read the following passage about population trends. The type of word missing is given. Can you supply the word?

Today the most important population trends are the fast growth in the number of elderly people and the sharp drop in the number of teenagers leaving school. The size of the elderly population is

(1) ........ (verb) because people are living longer and (2) ........ (adjective) babies have been born.

In 1911, only 5 percent of the UK population was older than 6:>.

Today, the (3) ....... (noun) is more than 15 per cent. Over the next decade the greatest (4).................... (noun) will be in people aged 75 and over. The drop in the number of school-leavers was <¹⁵).................... (verb) by the fall in the birth rate (6) ........ (preposition) 1964 and 1977.

This trend is known (7) ......... (preposition) the «demographic time bomb» - because demographers knew that, once the birth rate fell, there was

(8) ......... (deter­miner) way to stop it (9) ......... (verb) an explosive effect on the economy and on society 16 years later.

However, the impact may (10) ....... (adverb) be short-term. According to some forecasters the UK's birth rate may soon become one of the highest in western Europe.

Companies have to (11) ........ (verb) into account the age of the population when they are deciding what goods to produce and when they are recruiting staff.

In Britain and most of Europe, the birth rate fell between the ear­ly 1960s and the mid 1970s. That (12) ....... (verb) that, by the second half of the 1980s, the number of teenagers leaving school and looking for jobs each year fell sharply. In 1986, there were 6.2 mil­lion people so (13) ......... (adjective) between 16 and 24 in the

labour force. The turn of the century, demonstrated that it

(14) ........ (verb) to 4.9 million. That means that companies

who generally recruited many of their staff (15) ....... (ad­verb) from school have to think of other ways of attracting workers.

At the other end of the age scale is the significant increase in the number of elderly people in the population. Over the (16) ......... (adjective) ten years, several companies have (17) ......... (verb) up which specialize (18) ......... (pre­position) building «sheltered accommodation» for elderly people-groups of houses or flats where there is a warden on (19) ........ (noun) to give help. In the 1970s, these companies were virtually unknown. They have come into (20) ......... (noun) because of demographic change.

Compare your headings to the ones below. Were they similar? Now match the headings below to the appropriate paragraphs, eg. Paragraph 1 = e.

a Age range of those capable of generating income

b Drawbacks of relying on the dependency ratio

c Participation of the female in the work force

d Explanation of the term 'dependency ratio'

e The relationship between demography and politics

f The effects of longevity

g Comments on the dependency ratio in Britain over the last halt

century

h Definition of the dependent population

i Illustration of the effect of demography on the economy