Having Children Later in Life

Nowadays, more and more people decide to have children later in their life. What do you think are the reasons for this? Do the advantages of this trend outweigh the disadvantages?

Annotated response

1 correction note

Showing 1 correction note.

Many people currently decide not to have babies when they are young and wait until they get older instead. There are some reasons for this tendency, and it could have some impacts on family life as well as society.

To begin with, there are several reasons why a number of individuals want to have children later in their life. Firstly, this choice allows them to have more time to enjoy life when they are young. For instance, it is easier for a young couple to travel when they do not have a baby to nurture. Secondly, people who are at the early stage of their career usually have lower income compared to when they are older. Therefore, many people decide to start raising a family after having accumulated enough money to ensure a better life for their children.

However, this tendency might bring about some negative effects on both family life and society. The first impact is that having children later will cause a significant age gap between the two generations. This makes it harder for parents to understand and communicate with their offspring. Additionally, if people give birth when they are too old, the babies being born might be less physically healthy. This might adversely affect the quality of the future workforce if too many people decide to follow this trend.

In conclusion, there are some reasons why many people prefer to have children later in their life, and this tendency can result in some negative impacts on both family life and society.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 7.0

The response explains reasons for delayed parenthood, including travel freedom and financial readiness, and discusses several disadvantages. Its organisation and language are generally clear. The main limitation is the missing comparative judgement: the conclusion mentions negative impacts without deciding whether these outweigh the advantages already identified.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Response

6.0

The reasons paragraph identifies advantages, including freedom to travel and greater financial readiness. The later discussion develops disadvantages, but the response does not weigh these against the stated benefits or give a clear judgement about which outweighs the other.

Coherence and Cohesion

7.0

Ideas progress logically within well-managed paragraphs with clear cohesive devices, and the overall progression is easy to follow throughout.

Lexical Resource

7.0

Vocabulary is sufficiently flexible and precise, with natural collocations such as 'accumulated enough money', 'adversely affect' and 'quality of the future workforce', and only minimal inaccuracy.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

7.0

A good range of structures, including complex and conditional sentences, is used with flexibility and generally strong accuracy, with errors rare and non-impeding.