Shadowing Practice: Why we might be getting the birth rate panic wrong (again) | BBC Global - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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When I was growing up,
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When I was growing up,
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people worried about there being too many people on Earth.
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But in the last few years,
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that script has flipped for much of the world.
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Some countries do still have populations that are growing,
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but in much of the West,
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birth rates are hitting all-time lows.
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That has a lot of people worried.
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But recently, I sat down with demographer Jennifer Schuber,
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who thinks we're looking at this all wrong,
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and
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that aiming for a correct population size is a lot less important than how we adapt to the population we actually have.
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I think where we get this idea of a correct population number is it's the one
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that allows us to be the laziest.
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Because if you have rapid population growth,
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you are really focusing all your time and attention
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and policies on how do we make sure that there are enough schools being built?
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Do we make sure there are enough jobs?
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And we've been doing that for decades, right?
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So that's comfortable.
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If you're going to upend it,
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how do we make sure we train gerontologists?
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How do we make sure that there's enough long-term care?
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That's really, really hard.
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It's not opaque what needs to be done,
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but it's politically really difficult.
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I'm old enough to remember when overpopulation was the big anxiety.
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And I remember actually, I even have family members who very,
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you know, confidently said, I'm only going to limit myself to having one
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or two children because I don't want to add to this massive overpopulation that we have around the world.
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They turned out to have been wrong.
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So how confident are we that the latest fears we have about this declining population are valid?
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I think part of what we need to do is separate the fears from the data.
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But if we really look at the heyday of rhetoric around overpopulation,
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talking like late 60s into the 1970s,
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it seemed that overall population growth was just exponential.
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I mean, it's more than doubled in my own lifetime.
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But what was happening beneath the surface was that the growth rate of the population was declining already in the 1960s.
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This was happening, but it takes a while for that to show up on the surface.
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We were worried about the headline number.
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We should have been looking at the growth trends.
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Maybe so, but it's hard because that's what we experience, right?
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Like we're not experiencing some underlying tectonic force that no one can see.
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We're experiencing how bad is the traffic?
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What's competition for job really like?
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But now what's happened in our lives is that we've caught up.
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I haven't looked at the data that just got released a few days ago,
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but over 42% of U.S counties were shrinking.
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So for people in those counties,
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they would actually feel what has been happening beneath the surface.
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And certainly we know that there are over 40 countries in the world with shrinking populations.
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So it actually has changed.
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And then the fear around it,
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of course, is a different topic.
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It's really about how societies handle the changes,
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not about the changes themselves.
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That's right.
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And I wish we would talk about that more.
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But how societies handle it is really difficult, right?
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It's hard for a politician to stick their neck out and say,
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I think we're going to need to raise retirement age.
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Well, that person has just put themselves out of a job.
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If we assume that we are on this path for a while where populations are going to decline for a while longer.
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And who knows, maybe in 20 years time,
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we'll be having a very different conversation for whatever reason.
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But let's assume we're on this path for the next 20 years.
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What do countries and governments need to do to adapt in practice?
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What are a few of the things in practice that they need to do to adapt to this?
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Yeah.
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Well, I mean, so we care,
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health infrastructure certainly came up when we talk about gerontologists.
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Care is another one.
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So So there's so much care that we all need at different points in our life and including the end of life.
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And we have really most societies in the world have been set up
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that that women perform most of that care
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and they perform it unpaid many are happy to do
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so of course uh it's not we have to be careful
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when we talk about things like a care burden
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but it is a care situation and it is one where it's not sustainable
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when you have an inverted we would say demographic pyramid where there are
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so many older age dependents and so few people to actually take care of them.
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So we need to think about this at the systemic level and think about how it affects different people differently, right?
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The poorer you are, the harder it might be.
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If you are a woman who has a job outside the home,
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it might be more difficult as well.
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We also need to think about skills and education.
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We have had a really linear view around this, right?
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The many people try to,
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they amass their education and their skills in this first part of life,
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and then they put them to work in the second part.
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Then they retire those skills and hopefully the education stays with them.
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But when we live longer and we know that we need to work longer,
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do we move that to also show up at different parts of life so that we retrain,
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we upskill, we learn different areas,
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and we can make sure that we have income security more so in the long run,
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particularly as the number of people of working ages decline?
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Is it possible, with all of the caveats that you've mentioned,
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to determine whether quality of life is meaningfully different in a growing society versus a shrinking one?
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That's a great question that I'm tempted to overanalyze because I think we actually need to update our definition of this.
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But if I keep it simple in what we know to be true,
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quality of life has actually been much higher in societies that have had declining fertility rates.
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We have much longer life expectancy.
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We have higher education rates.
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And that's because fertility rates tend to come down when you have a rising standard of living.
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And these things, of course,
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interact with one another and feedback on one another.
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What will be interesting for us,
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we are entering into an era of the unknown.
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And we have really been,
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it seems like we moved very quickly off of our celebrations of success that went along with declining fertility,
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like amazing opportunities for women to work outside the home of the fact that we're even here doing this.
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What a celebration.
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Go us.
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And we moved past that really quickly to just talk about the bad parts of things.
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How do we redefine what success
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and wellbeing look like in the context of a population
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that is not infinitely growing and perhaps doesn't have an infinitely growing GDP?
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We need new vocabulary around this.
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Before we go, Jennifer, I'm going to make you prime minister or president or monarch for the day.
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if you were to design a society from scratch,
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where you knew the population was going to decline over time,
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how would you design it?
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I would design it where we have really strong local communities.
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I think so much of where we get off track these days is
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that we have this national level policymaking that is all felt at the local level.
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And there's such a disconnect in that.
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And the way we live our lives really is neighborhood by neighborhood,
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street by street, community by community.
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And by building those really strong communities,
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I think we lay the foundation for resilience that is needed whether
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or not your population is going to grow or is going to shrink.
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And that's actually something that we can do if we increase our knowledge about these trends more and more,
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which we're doing through this.
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I think there's a lot of folks with probably really innovative ideas at the community level and I'd love to see them.
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Yeah, a better community is better care for all of those older people as well.
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Jennifer Schuber, thank you so much for joining me.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Why practice speaking with this video?
Engaging with the video titled "Why we might be getting the birth rate panic wrong (again)" provides an enriching opportunity for English speaking practice. The content discusses population trends and demographic insights, offering learners rich material to dissect and discuss. By practicing speaking with this video, you not only improve your vocabulary but also enhance your ability to articulate complex ideas clearly. Furthermore, discussing this topic can help you develop a nuanced understanding of social issues in English, giving you confidence to partake in conversations that are relevant in today’s world.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
In the transcript, various grammatical structures and expressions offer valuable insights into how to formulate arguments and provide evidence. Here are a few key structures used by the speaker:
- Conditional sentences: Phrases like "if we really look at..." demonstrate the use of conditionals, which help in expressing possible outcomes based on specific conditions.
- Comparative clauses: Sentences such as "we should have been looking at the growth trends” illustrate how to compare past and present situations effectively.
- Use of passive voice: The speaker employs passive structures, making statements like "over 42% of U.S counties were shrinking," which is crucial when focusing on the action rather than the subject.
- Direct quotations: The use of quotations like "I remember actually, I even have family members..." invites learners to see how to relive personal anecdotes, enhancing storytelling skills.
Practicing these structures in your own speaking not only improves your English speaking practice but also equips you with the tools to discuss complex topics fluidly.
Common Pronunciation Traps
While shadowing the speaker, pay special attention to certain tricky words and phrases that might pose pronunciation challenges:
- Demographer: This word can be difficult due to its length and syllable emphasis. It is pronounced as de-MOG-ra-fer.
- Exponential: Ensure to pronounce this word correctly as ex-PON-en-tial to convey its meaning accurately.
- Gerontologists: This term refers to those who study aging and can be a mouthful. Break it down: ger-on-TO-logo-gists.
- Politically: This word can trip up many due to its rhythmic flow; focus on the po-LIT-i-cal-ly stress.
To improve your English pronunciation, practice these words and phrases in shadow speech exercises. Engaging with this video through shadowspeak techniques will help you master both pronunciation and the natural rhythm of English speech.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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