Enjoy Rendering!: Сборник текстов для перевода и реферирования. Батурина С.А. - 5 стр.

               Part II. ARTICLES FOR RENDERING                                        One more possible explanation? Young Italians discovered yup-
                                                                               piedom later than their American or French counterparts. But many of
                 Why Italians don’t Make Babies?                               them do now want to go dancing, travel and have a good time for many
                                                                               more years than before. Marriage and babies can wait. And the two are
                                              NCE upon a time, the Anglo-      still more closely linked than in most other countries in Europe: only
                                      Saxon cliche held that Italy stood       6 % of Italian babies are born out of wedlock. But less than a third of
                                      for love and passion; frequent and       women now become mothers before they are 28. One Italian habit still
                                      frenzied sex, without, of course,        survives, and may also inhibit baby-making: the, "mammoni-phenome-
                                      contraception; and, as a result, big     non". A lot of young adults – perhaps even more than before – still live
                                      weddings, big families and loads of      with their parents, partly because they cannot afford to live so com-
                                      children. How times – and images –       fortably on their own. Living with parents, however open-minded they
                                      change.                                  are, does tend to make you behave a bit more demurely with friends of
                                              Italians have stopped making     the other sex. And there is still, even in Italy, a connection between sex
                                      babies; the nation is ageing fast;       and babies.
                                      and, according to the country's chief
                                      statistical body, Italy has the lowest         1. Vocabulary notes:
                                      fertility rate in the world. Women             1) frenzied – бешеный, яростный, темпераментный
                                      now bear 1,2 babies apiece. Only               2) fertility – воспроизведение потомства
the Spaniards, in Western Europe, are as unproductive. At last count, in             3) dearth – недостаток, нехватка (продуктов)
1996, deaths had outpaced births for four years in a row. If Italy's                 4) stigma – пятно позора, стигма
population is slightly up, it is thanks to the 178 000 immigrants who                5) eschew – избегать, сторониться
took up legal residence two years ago.                                               6) yuppiedom – светская жизнь
       Why? No explanation is definitive. Ever more Italian women                    7) inhibit – мешать, препятствовать, сдерживать
work, so have less time for bambini. North European women work just                  8) demurely – скромно, сдержанно
as much, but mothers get more help: public nurseries, finance, holi-                 9) impetuous – порывистый, темпераментный
days, husbands who (more often than in Italy) help in the house. But
there are anomalies. The region of Emilia Romagna, for instance, has                 2. Answer the following questions.
some of the best nurseries in the world but also Italy's lowest baby-                1) Does the title of the text “Why Italians don’t make babies”
making rate. Perhaps the dearth is due to late-coming feminism: the            express its main idea?
region is also Italy's most left-wing.                                               2) What are the consequences of Italians have stopped making
       Ida Magli, an anthropologist, has come up with another reason:          babies?
childlessness no longer bears a stigma, and the social pressure to marry             3) Can Italian women employment be considered as a definitive
and have children is much weaker. That applies even in the Mezzog-             explanation?
iorno (Italy's poor and ultra-traditional south), where women are choos-             4) Is childlessness still believed to be shameful?
ing to have fewer babies.                                                            5) Do Italians postpone marriage and babies because of their
       In any event, the notion that impetuous Italians have unprotected       wish to have a good time?
sex is false. It is some time since most Italians, even the good Catholics           6) What is “mammoni-phenomenon”?
among them, eschewed contraception.
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