Soal UTBK 2024 – LBE Topik 3

Read text 1 and text 2 below to answer question number 1 to 7!

Text 1

American are having fewer babies. At first, researchers thought the declining fertility rate was because of the recession, but it kept falling even as the economy recovered. Now it has reached a record low for the second consecutive year.
Because the fertility rate subtly shapes many major issues of the day – including immigration, education, housing, the labor supply, the social safety net and support for working families – there’s a lot of concern about why today’s young adults aren’t having as many children. So we asked them.

Wanting more leisure time and personal freedom; not having a partner yet; not being able to afford child-care cost － these were the top reasons young adults gave for not wanting or not being sure they wanted children, according to a new survey conducted by Morning Consult for The New York Times. About a quarter of the respondents who had children or planned to said they had fewer or expected to have fewer than they wanted. The largest shares said they delayed or stopped having children because of concerns about having enough time or money.

The survey, one of the most comprehensive explorations of the reasons that adults are having fewer children, tells a story that is partly about greater gender equality. Women have more agency over their lives, and many feel that motherhood has become more of a choice. But it’s also a story of economic insecurity. Young people have record student debt, many graduated in a recession and many can’t afford homes － all as parenthood has become more expensive. Women in particular pay an earning penalty for having children.

“We want to invest more in each child to give them the best opportunities to compete in an increasingly unequal environment,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who studies families and has written about fertility.

At the same time, he said, “There is no getting around the fact that the relationship between gender equality and fertility is very strong: There are no high-fertility countries that are gender equal.”

The vast majority of women in the United States sill have children. But the most commonly used measure of fertility, the number of births for every 1,000 women of childbearing age, was 60.2 last year, a record low. The total fertility rate － which estimates how many children women will have based on current patterns － is down to 1.8, below the replacement level in developed countries of 2.1.

The United States seems to have almost caught up with most of the rest of the industrialized world’s low fertility rates. It used to have higher fertility for reasons like more teenage pregnancies, more unintended pregnancies and high fertility among Hispanic immigrants. But those trends have recently reversed, in part because of increased use of long-acting birth control methods like IUDs.

In the Morning Consult and Time Survey, more than half of the 1,858 respondents － a nationally representative sample of men and women ages 20 to 45 － said they planned to have fewer children than their parents. About half were already parents. Of those who weren’t, 42 percent said they wanted children, 24 percent said they did not and 34 percent said they weren’t sure.

One of the biggest factors was personal: having no desire for children and wanting more leisure time, a pattern that has also shown up in social science research. A quarter of poll respondents who didn’t plan to have children said one reason was they didn’t think they’d be good parents.

Jessica Boer, 26, has a long list of things she’d rather spend time doing than raising children: being with her family and her fiance; traveling; focusing on her job as a nurse; getting a master’s degree; playing with her cats.
“My parents got married right out of high school and had me and they were miserable,” said Ms. Boer, who lives in Portage, Mich. “But now we know we have choice.”

She said she had such high expectations for parents that she wasn’t sure she could meet them: “I would have the responsibility to raise this person into a functional and productive citizen, and some days I’m not even responsible.”
This generation, unlike the ones that came before it, is as likely as not earn less than their parents. Among people who did not plan to have children, 23 percent said it was because they were worried about the economy. A third said they couldn’t afford child care, 24 percent said they couldn’t afford a house and 13 percent cited student debt.
Financial concerns also led people to have fewer children than what they considered to be ideal: 64 percent said it was because child care was too expensive, 43 percent said they waited too long because of financial instability and about 40 percent said it was because of a lack of paid family leave.

Text 2

Would you have a baby, or add more children to your family, if the government offers to help you cover the bills? Government programs that give parents money for having kids are appearing in more and more countries as a strategy to combat declining birth rates.

Researchers study birth rates as a way to measure the stability of a community. In general, people will have children if they feel they have job security and stable economy. They will also want more children if they feel supported in starting a family. However, declining population growth can destroy the economy. Financial incentives and bonuses are one way to support parents and boost birth rates.

In one small municipality in Finland, Lestijarvi, fewer and fewer babies are born. Only one child had been born per year before 2013. Since then, local officials have given a “baby bonus” in which each baby born is worth 10,000 euros. This is paid to the family over the course of 10 years.

The bonuses for having children seem to be able to solve problem of low birth rate un various places. This works in Finland, Italy, Japan, and Australia. Governments can persuade parents to have children by promising easy childcare. They can also encourage women to have jobs while also having children.

Soal 1

According to the text 1, what is one reason people say for not having children?

(A) They want to enjoy their lives without additional burden

(B) They can simply adopt babies when they need one.

(C) The government does not give them money.

(D) Their parents do not support them to have kids.

(E) They want more money to support themselves in their old age

Soal 2

The expression “have more agency over” in text 1 paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ….
(A) Acquire more establishment
(B) Own more enterprises
(C) Process more control
(D) Keep more business
(E) Hold more offices

Soal 3

What is the main idea of text 1?

(A) Americans do not have enough money, time, and ability to support more children.

(B) People are having fewer children because humans have become less fertile over the past century.

(C) The government can do various things to increase the country’s population, such as giving parents money.

(D) Americans are more reluctant to have children because of economic, social, and personal reasons.

(E) Women are often blamed for decreased birth rate because they have become too independent.

Soal 4

Which of the following best restates the sentence “Would you have a baby, or add more children to tyour family, if the government offers to help you cover the bills?” in text 2 paragraph 1?

(A) Would you add more kids to your family if the state charge childcare bills?

(B) Would you want to have more children if the country provides financial assistance?

(C) Would you want to have more kids if it were possible to do so?

(D) Would you adopt more children if the government pays for the adoption fees?

(E) Would you have another baby if the government offers an easy childcare?

Soal 5

The author’s purpose in writing Text 2 is to ….

(A) Informs that financial help seems to be an effective strategy to overcome declining the birth rate.

(B) Calculate how much a government may spend to persuade people to have kids.

(C) Persuade readers to have more because it will strengthen economy.

(D) Prove that modern parents ask the government for more and more money.

(E) Compare the birth rate between rich and poor countries.

Soal 6

Which of the following statements shows the author’s positive attitude toward government support?

(A) Young people have student debt, many graduated in a recession, and many cannot afford homes.

(B) Financial concerns also led people to have fewer children than what they considered to be ideal.

(C) Researches study birth rates as a way to measure the stability of community.

(D) In general, people will have children if they feel they have job security and stable economy.

(E) These bonuses for having children seem to be able to solve problem of low birth rate in various places.

Soal 7

Which of the following can be concluded from both text?

(A) Children are becoming more expensive to raise, so the government must take the responsibility.

(B) To combat declining birth rate, countries must force their citizens

(C) Providing good support for women can help overcome population decline

(D) Having children in the modern era can cause economic hardship and loss of happiness for families.

(E) Richer people tend to have less children, while poorer people tend to have more.