Beijing’s efforts to reinvigorate China’s birth rate, one of the lowest in the world, face a serious obstacle as semen quality plummets¹ among young male donors², research suggests.

研究表明，中国政府提升中国出生率的努力面临一个严重的障碍——年轻男性捐精者的精液质量大幅下降。中国是世界上出生率最低的国家之一。

Last year fewer than a fifth of young men who donated sperm⁴ in the inland province of Hunan had sufficiently⁵ healthy semen to qualify as a donor³, according to a 15-year study of more than 30,000 applicants⁶.

根据一项持续15年、对3万多名申请捐精者进行的研究，去年在中国内陆省份湖南捐精的年轻人中，只有不到五分之一的人精液足够健康，有资格捐赠。

In 2001 more than half qualified⁷.

而在2001年时，超过半数申请者能够合格。

Local media reports indicate Hunan is not the only province suffering a shortage in qualified donors.

国内媒体报道表明，湖南并非唯一一个合格捐精者不足的省份。

State broadcaster China Radio International recently reported that a sperm bank in Henan province had dropped minimum height and education requirements for donors and was offering to store their semen free of charge for three decades in an effort to make up its own deficit⁸.

官方的中国国际广播电台(CRI)最近报道，河南省的一家精子库降低了对捐献者身高和学历的最低要求，并且免费保存捐献者的精子30年，以弥补精子的短缺。

Growing evidence seems to suggest that male infertility⁹ is increasingly becoming a serious concern in the entire country, said Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

越来越多的证据似乎都表明，男性不育正日益成为全国范围内的一个严重问题，位于纽约的美国对外关系委员会(CFR)全球健康高级研究员黄严忠说。

If shown to reflect a broader trend, such findings would further complicate¹⁰ China’s mounting demographic problems.

如果这些发现反映出一种更广泛的趋势，这将使中国日益加剧的人口问题进一步复杂化。

China’s fertility rate — the number of children a woman is expected to have during her child-bearing years — was 1.05 last year, according to data from the Chinese government’s annual 1 per cent population survey, which polls about 17m citizens each year.

根据中国政府每年对约1700万居民进行的年度全国1%人口抽样调查，去年中国的生育率是1.05。生育率指的是女性在育龄期预期生育子女的总数。

The bottom territories in a World Bank 2014 survey — South Korea, Portugal, Hong Kong and Macau — had fertility rates of 1.2, against a global average of 2.5.

在世界银行(World Bank)2014年进行的调查中，生育率最低的国家和地区——韩国、葡萄牙、香港和澳门——的生育率是1.2，而全球平均生育率是2.5。

That survey estimated China’s fertility at 1.6, still far below the 2.1 births per woman needed to keep a country’s population from shrinking.

该调查估计中国的生育率是1.6，这个数值依然远低于让一国人口免于减少所需的生育率水平——平均每个女性生育2.1个孩子。

China is ageing rapidly, leading to a shortage of young workers and warnings of a pensions crisis, but its fertility rate has long been in decline.

中国正处于迅速老龄化之中，导致年轻劳动者短缺，引发有关养老金危机的警告。然而，长期以来中国的生育率却一直在下降。

From a peak of 6.4 births per woman in 1965 it had fallen to 2.8 by 1979, the year the notorious one-child policy was introduced amid fears of runaway¹¹ population growth.

该指标从1965年每位妇女平均生育6.4个子女的峰值，下滑到1979年的2.8。1979年，由于担心人口增长失控，中国引入了一胎化政策。

That regime led to widespread sex-selective abortion¹², resulting in a significantly skewed sex ratio.

该政策导致了普遍的性别选择流产，致使性别比例显著扭曲。

The blanket policy was scrapped¹³ late last year for a two-child policy.

这一全面政策在去年底被取消，取而代之的是两胎化政策。

But previous loosening of the old policy has fallen short of policymakers’ hopes in raising the country’s birth rate, with many Chinese couples apparently¹⁴ unwilling¹⁵ to take advantage of the chance to have a second child.

不过，由于许多中国夫妇似乎不愿利用这一机会养育第二个子女，对旧政策的放宽未能实现中国政策制定者提高中国出生率的期望。

The situation is probably worse than expected, said Mr Huang, noting that the results of a government-commissioned national study on infertility in China that had been scheduled to end in 2011 had still not been made public.

黄严忠表示：局面可能比想象的更糟糕。他指出，中国政府委托开展了一项对中国不孕不育现象的全国性研究，该研究项目原定于2011年结束，却至今仍未公布研究结果。

Some researchers also say previous census¹⁶ results have been manipulated by family planning officials in regions with a pro-birth policy, who inflate¹⁷ birth rates in order to make their policies look more effective.

部分研究人员还表示，在实施支持生育政策的地区，此前的人口普查结果受到了计生官员的操纵。他们夸大出生率，目的是为了令他们的政策执行效率看起来更高一些。

The researchers in the Hunan semen study, published online in the journal Fertility and Sterility¹⁸, say there is no clear explanation for why donors’ reproductive health declined so rapidly.

湖南精液研究项目的研究报告发布在学术期刊《生育与不孕》(Fertility and Sterility)的网站上。该项目的研究人员表示，对于捐精者生殖健康为何下滑如此迅速，目前还没有明确解释。

But they point to increased environmental pollution, including pollution of water, air and food, as a possible explanation.

不过，他们提到包括水污染、空气污染和食品污染在内的环境污染加剧是其可能原因。

However, World Health Organisation¹⁹ spokesperson Tarik Jašarević said the WHO could not yet determine with certainty which factors had caused deterioration²⁰ in certain or multiple countries, as studies often employed different methodologies to analyse semen.

不过，世界卫生组织(WHO)发言人塔里克.贾萨瑞维奇(Tarik Jašarević)表示，由于各研究项目中分析精液的方法往往各不相同，WHO目前还不能完全确定什么因素导致了特定国家或多个国家精液质量的恶化。

He also cautioned that semen quality did not necessarily correlate directly with male fertility.

他还提醒说，精液质量不一定与男性生育能力直接相关。

It should be noted²¹ that male reproductive health can be affected²² by many complex factors, including lifestyle, the environment and concomitant diseases, he said.

他说，应该指出的是，男性生殖健康可能受到许多复杂因素的影响，包括生活方式、环境及相关疾病。

More research is needed to enable sound guidance or policy advice concerning deteriorating²³ semen quality.

关于精液质量的恶化，需要开展更多研究才能提出完善的指导意见或政策建议。