Level 5 - Unit 3 - Part 3 Listen
Living conditions around the world vary from country to country. Some countries have very large economies, but the majority of their citizens are poor. Other countries have smaller economies, but the majority of their citizens are NOT poor. So the size of a country's economy isn't the only factor that determines how wealthy its citizens are. The size of its population is also an important factor. Another factor is how a country's wealth is distributed between the rich and the poor.
世界各地的生活条件各国存在差异。有些国家经济规模很大,但多数国民都很贫穷。另一些国家的经济规模较小,但多数国民并不贫穷。因此,一个国家的经济规模并不是决定其国民富裕程度的唯一因素,人口规模也是一个重要因素。另一个因素是国家财富如何在富人和穷人之间分配。
Let's look at some examples. This chart shows the world's 10 largest economies in 2015. It ranks the countries by their Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. The GDP is one way of measuring the size of an economy. It is the total value of the goods and services produced in a country in a year. As you can see, according to this chart, the US and China had the largest economies.
我们来看几个例子。这张图表显示了2015年的世界十个最大经济体,它根据这些国家的国内生产总值(GDP)对其进行排名。GDP是衡量经济规模的一种方式,它是一个国家在一年内生产的商品和服务的总价值。如你所见,图表显示美国和中国是最大的经济体。
According to the chart, India had the seventh largest economy in the world. Its economy was bigger than Italy's. However, the average living conditions in Italy are much higher than in India. One reason for this is the difference in population. India has a much larger population, so its wealth is distributed among a much larger number of people. You can find this information by checking a country's GDP per capita. Per capita means per person. If two countries have the same GDP, but one country has half the number of people, its GDP per capita is twice as large.
根据图表,印度是世界第七大经济体,其经济规模大于意大利。然而,意大利的平均生活条件比印度高得多,原因之一是人口的差异。印度的人口要多得多,所以它的财富分配给了更多的人。你可以通过查看一个国家的人均GDP来获取该信息,人均是指每人。如果两个国家GDP相同,但一个国家人口只有一半,那么它的人均GDP就是两倍。
Another important factor is how the wealth of a country is shared. In some countries much of the wealth is concentrated in just a few people. For example, in the US, just 5% of the population holds more than 70% of the wealth. This shows that many US citizens are not wealthy despite the size of their economy. In fact, the wealth share held by the wealthiest 10% more than 10 times bigger than the rest of the population.
另一个重要因素是国家的财富如何分配。在一些国家,财富大部分集中在少数人手中。例如,在美国,只有5%的人口拥有超过70%的财富。这表明,尽管美国经济规模庞大,但许多美国公民并不富裕。事实上,最富有的10%的人所拥有的财富比其他人多10倍以上。