英國出生率達40年來最高 或由於冬季變冷
The figures show a winter baby boom has pushed up birth rates to levels not seen for nearly 40 years.
The number of women giving birth during the late months of the year has shot up by a fifth in a decade – faster than the increase during the summer.
Autumn births have been particularly high over the past two years, according to the analysis.
The months in 2010 with the highest fertility rates – the number of children for every woman of childbearing age – were September, at 2.11; October, at 2.09; and November, at 2.03. The lowest fertility rates were in April and May, with 1.92 and 1.93 for each woman.
The fertility rate is a figure that expresses how many children the average woman is likely to have over her lifetime.
It is worked out by dividing the birth rate in a particular period by the number of women of childbearing age.
This means that a spike in births will raise the rate for a particular month.
In October, the month last year with the greatest number of births, there were 64,542 newborns, an increase of nearly 27 percent over the same month in 2000.
By contrast, the 54,551 children born in the month with the lowest births figure in 2010, February, was a 16 percent rise over the same month in 2000.
Babies born during the autumn of last year were conceived during one of the coldest winters for years and January 2009 was the coldest since 1997.
Birth rates are now higher than at any point since the early 1970s and, as a result, the average woman can now expect to have at least two children.
"Some believe that the fertility rate was highest in September, October and November in 2010 because people were staying in more due to the bad weather the previous winter", a spokesman for the Office for National Statistics said.據英國《每日郵報》11月10日報道，冬季嬰兒出生熱潮使得英國2011年的出生率達到了40年來的最高水平。
年底分娩的婦女數量在十年內激增了1/5——超過了夏季的增長速度。
據分析，在過去的兩年中，秋季嬰兒出生率一直持續居高。
2010年生育率最高的月份爲——按照每個育齡婦女生育孩子的數量計算——九月，平均2.11個；十月，2.09個；十一月，2.03個。最低生育率出現在四月和五月，分別爲平均每個育齡婦女生育1.92和1.93個孩子。
生育率反映的是平均每個女性在一生中可能誕育的孩子的數量。
它的計算方法是用特定時間內的出生率除以育齡婦女的數量。
這意味着特定月份的生育高峯會提高生育率。
十月是去年出生人數最多的一個月，共計有64542名新生嬰兒，與2000年同月比較，增加了將近27%。
相比之下，2010年出生率最低的二月誕生了54551名新生兒，較之2000年同月，僅增長了16%。
去年秋季出生的嬰兒是在多年來最冷的一個冬季孕育的，2009年1月是自1997年以來最寒冷的冬天。
英國現在的出生率正處於自20世紀70年代以來的最高點，因此，可以預計平均每個婦女將至少生育兩個孩子。
“一些人認爲，2010年的最高生育率之所以出現在九月、十月和十一月，是因爲在2009年冬天，人們因爲惡劣的氣候更多地選擇了呆在家中不出門”，國家統計局發言人這樣說道。
