来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年2月9日
The reality of why American families are smaller is not about a failing national character or a decline in women’s femininity. It’s about money. Because while many more women are choosing to have no children or fewer children, others are having fewer children than they would like. And for these women, their own smaller families are the result not of their own personal selfishness or moral degradation, but of economic constraints. The United States has spent shockingly little of its annual tax revenues on creating accessible and effective support for mothers. For years, the US has made domestic policy that has punished women for becoming mothers, and by extension, de-incentivized those who want to have as many children as they would like. This is one reason why the birth rate has declined so much: women are not given enough material support by the state to be able to raise children while still leading prosperous, economically productive lives.
美国家庭规模变小的现实并不是因为国民性的衰退或女性气质的下降。是钱的原因。因为当越来越多的女性选择不生孩子或少生孩子的时候，其余女性生的孩子却比她们想要的数量要少。对这些女性来说，她们自己家庭规模小不是她们个人自私或道德败坏的结果，而是经济限制的结果。美国在为母亲提供方便有效的支持方面花费的年度税收少得惊人。多年来，美国制定了惩罚女性成为母亲的国内政策，进而打击了那些想要多少孩子就生多少孩子的人。这是出生率下降如此之多的一个原因：:国家没有给予妇女足够的物质支持，使她们能够在抚养孩子的同时，仍然过着富裕、经济富有成效的生活。
Women, after all, are paid notably less than men, and the gaps in compensation often begin early in women’s careers, even before they have begun raising families. Those pay gaps become larger as careers progress, making it harder for women to begin their families and harder for them to provide for the families that policymakers want them to grow.
毕竟，女性的薪酬明显低于男性，而且薪酬差距往往在女性职业生涯的早期就开始了，甚至在她们开始抚养家庭之前。随着职业的发展，这些收入差距变得更大，使女性更难组建家庭，也更难供养政策制定者希望的成员逐渐变多的家庭。
But once a worker becomes pregnant, there is little protection to enable her to have both her baby and her job. Pregnancy discrimination is rampant and laws against it are enforced laxly when they are enforced at all, meaning that many women, when they become pregnant, are demoted or fired by employers who assume that she will be less productive after she becomes a mother.
但是一旦一个工人怀孕了，就没有什么保护措施能让她既要孩子又要工作。怀孕歧视十分猖獗，而相关法律的执行却很松懈，这意味着许多女性一旦怀孕，就会被雇主降职或解雇，因为雇主认为她们成为母亲后工作效率会降低。
Even if she manages to keep her job through her pregnancy, there is no guarantee she will be able to keep it once she gives birth. The United States is unique among its peer nations in having no mandatory paid maternity leave, meaning that when a woman leaves work to have her child, she often has to choose between staying with her baby in the vulnerable and tender early months, or rushing back to work while she heals.
即使她成功地在怀孕期间保住了工作，也不能保证她在分娩后能保住这份工作。美国在富裕国家中是独一无二的，没有强制性带薪产假，这意味着当一名妇女为了生孩子而离开工作岗位时，她常常不得不在早期几个月与脆弱和年幼的婴儿呆在一起，或者在康复期间赶回工作岗位之间做选择。
That is all assuming that the pregnancy and birth go well. Because due to public neglect of women’s health, the United States has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world.
这都是假设怀孕和分娩顺利。因为公众对妇女健康的忽视，美国的孕产妇死亡率在发达国家中是最高的。
There is no universal childcare in the United States, and the cost of childcare can be staggeringly high, meaning that mothers frequently have to choose between keeping their jobs, sending their children to substandard facilities, or allowing an acceptable childcare provider to eat a substantial chunk of her paycheck.
在美国没有普遍的托儿服务，而托儿服务的价格可能高得惊人，这意味着母亲们经常不得不在保住工作、把孩子送到不合格的托儿所，或让一个合格的托儿服务提供者吃掉她薪水的很大一部分之间做出选择。