学术高级英语：越来越少印度女人外出工作(episode 1)

欢迎你关注学术高级英语专辑，我希望在自己收获知识的同时，也和你一起分享。适合具有中高级英语水平的童鞋学习，每天3-5分钟听听我分享的新闻，地道实用的高级英语表达就学会了～:D 欢迎你订阅专辑，没有特殊情况的话每天更新。

Neither of Kirandeep Kaur’s older sisters works. Nor do most of her girlfriends. (neither…nor…. 既不.....也不.....)But the 21-year-old is giving it a shot(=have a try). By the summer, upon (即将来临)completion of a three-month nursing course(护理课程), she hopes to start as a bedside(床边的) assistant in a hospital in Kapurthala, a town near her village in the northern Indian state of Punjab [pʌn'dʒɑ:b. In a windowless(没窗的) classroom bedecked[bɪ'dɛkt](以…装饰的) with medical diagrams(图表), she and a dozen others are learning the difference between a stethoscope['steθəskəʊp](听诊器) and an endoscope['endəskəʊp](做手术用的内窥镜).

Ms Kaur would rather not act as a pioneer among her peers(同辈). But her father, a labourer (工人) on building sites, has heart problems, her mother is dead and her sisters live with their husbands’ families. Financial necessity and the prospect(可能性格) of a 5,000 rupees ($73) monthly pay cheque trumped(胜过) any patriarchal [peɪtrɪ'ɑːk(ə)l](由男性控制的/以男性为主导的) hesitation her father had about her new path. After several years at home since finishing school, the putative['pjuːtətɪv](believed or accepted by most people 公认的，被普遍认可的) nurse thinks she might enjoy it, too.

Everything suggests that Indian women ought to be(应该) following Ms Kaur into the workplace. The economy has grown(提升/长大) at around 7% a year for two decades, girls are now far better educated than their mothers and fertility rates(出生率 P.S. 节目里我的发音有误，在此说明) have dropped rapidly. Such dynamics(力度，动力) sucked(把…卷入) millions of women into the labour force(劳动力) in other poor countries. Excluding(排除) India the proportion( 比例，占比) of women who work worldwide(在全球各地的) is 50% (see chart 1). But in India, it has declined(降低) from 35% in 2005 to 26% today. No country has experienced such a steep decline(急剧下降), and from a low level to boot(靴子/谕旨更低的水平).