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But this was just the beginning of his analysis.
但是，這僅僅是他的分析的起點。
Becker observed that people do acquire general human capital, but they often do so at their own expense, rather than that of employers.
貝克爾注意到，人們是要獲取一般性人力資本，但是，他們經常是自費獲取，而不是用雇主的錢。
This is true of university, when students take on debts to pay for education before entering the workforce.
這對于大學來說如此，對于幾乎所有行業的工人來說亦是如此。
It is also true of workers in almost all industries: interns, trainees and junior employees share in the cost of getting them up to speed by being paid less.
前者出現在學生為支付學費而在進入勞動大軍之前而背負債務時，后者體現在實習生、受訓者和初級員工通過少拿工資來分擔讓自己迅速進入角色的費用這個方面。
Becker made the assumption that people would be hard-headed in calculating how much to invest in their own human capital.
貝克爾提出了人們在為自己的人力資本投多少錢而算計時會精打細算的假設。
They would compare expected future earnings from different career choices and consider the cost of acquiring the education to pursue these careers, including time spent in the classroom.
他們會比較不同職業選擇的未來收入，并且還會考慮為追求這些職業而獲取教育的成本，如用在教室中的時間。
He knew that reality was far messier, with decisions plagued by uncertainty and complicated motivations, but he described his model as an “economic way of looking at life”.
他深知，雖說現實紛繁復雜，各種決定為不確定性和種種復雜的動機所困擾。但是，他還是把自己的模型描述為一種“看待生活的經濟學方式”。
His simplified assumptions about people being purposeful and rational in their decisions laid the groundwork for an elegant theory of human capital, which he expounded in several seminal articles and a book in the early 1960s.
他的這些有關人們在做決定時是有目的的、理性的的簡化假設為他在上世紀60年代的多篇開創性論文和一本書中對其做出了論述的精妙的人力資本理論奠定了基礎。
His theory helped explain why younger generations spent more time in schooling than older ones: longer life expectancies raised the profitability of acquiring knowledge.
他的理論為解釋為什么年輕一代比前輩把更多的時間用在學習上提供幫助：不斷延長的預期壽命提升了獲取知識的盈利性。
It also helped explain the spread of education: advances in technology made it more profitable to have skills, which in turn raised the demand for education.
它還為解釋教育的普及提供了幫助：技術進步使得擁有技能更為有利可圖，這反過來又提高了對于教育的需求。
It showed that under-investment in human capital was a constant risk: young people can be short-sighted given the long payback period for education; and lenders are wary of supporting them because of their lack of collateral (attributes such as knowledge always stay with the borrower, whereas a borrower's physical assets can be seized).
他的理論表明，人力資本方面的投資不足是一種恒久不變的風險：鑒于教育的長久回報期，年輕人可能是目光短淺的；同時，放債方會由于他們缺乏抵押品而對支持他們持謹慎的態度（像知識這種資本的屬性總是與舉債方在一起，而舉債方的有形資產是可以被查封的）。
It suggested that there was no fixed number of good jobs but that highly paid work would increase as economies produced more skilled graduates who generated more innovation.
他的理論表明，沒有固定數量的好工作，但是，高工資工作會隨著經濟體生產出更多的帶來了更多創新的高技能畢業生而增加。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
