阅读理解。
The Age of Unreason
Charles Handy
In his book The Age of Unreason Professor Handy describes the dramatic changes that are taking
place in our lives today and warns that we must adapt to these changes if we want to survive in the
future.
Handy believes that in the future less than 50% of the workforce will be employed full-time by an
organization. These full-time employees will be the qualified professionals, technicians, and managers
who are essential to an organization. Their working lives will be a lot more demanding than today, but in
return they will be well-paid and they will retire earlier. The rest of the workforce will Be self-employed
or will work part-time, providing organizations with the products and services they require on a
contract basis. Handy forecasts a big increase in the number of working mothers in future and believes
there will be a large number of unemployed.
Handy gives us plenty of figures to worry about. He estimates that by the year 2040, one person in
five will retire, and one in ten will be over seventy-five years old. There will be one retiree to every three
people of working age, and even more than that in countries such as Germany and Switzerland, where
the proportion will be as much as one to two. Retirees will remain healthy and active for longer than
they do today and many will live to be a hundred years old, a fact which leads Handy to suggest that the
term retirement will no longer be appropriate. He suggests the third age is a more appropriate
description, since it will be as important a part of our lives as the first age of learning and the second age
of working are for us today.
1. Professor Handy wrote the book most probably to ____.
A. warn us of potential social problems in the future
B. predict the leading professions in the coming years
C. describe the effect of unemployment on society
D. suggest a better term for future retirement
2. According to Protcssor Handy, the future workforce will ____.
A. adapt to the changes in retirement easily
B. be mainly self-employed
C. have fewer full-time workers than today
D. work on a contract basis
3. From the last paragraph, we learn that about 30 years from now, _____.
A. the number of retirees will double in many countries
B. ageing will be a common and serious problem
C. 10% of the population will live to be 100 years old
D. the third age will be the most important part of our lives
