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

3 correction notes

Showing 3 correction notes.

These days many couples decide to have babies at least a few years after their marriage and they are in their early thirties when they become parents for the first time. I believe career, social changes, and escalating living expenses are some of the major reasons behind this trend. In my belief advantages of having children later in life outweigh its demerits.

To commence with, a growing number of people, including women, are now serious about their career development. This is perhaps the primary reason they do not expect to have children in the early stage of their marriage. It is intuitively obvious that with huge competition, unemployment and economic crisis, people around the world are constantly worried about their careers and salaries. As a result, many decide to postpone their first childbirth. Secondly, women's empowerment and social changes have altered the old way of life where a woman's sole responsibility was to look after the children. Since many wives are working these days, they decide to after they reach a certain position in their career. Furthermore, social beliefs regarding giving birth to children have changed dramatically, and people are more concerned about living expenses than the number of babies they have, unlike in the past.

Undeniably, people who choose to concentrate on their careers first and then have babies can take better care of their children due to better careers and economic freedom. Having offspring early in life can escalate the expenditures and financial responsibilities of parents. Moreover, if they do not spend enough time with children, they grow up with psychological issues. Thus, young parents might put their careers at risk as well as the future of their children. Reversely, having offspring in early life has few advantages. Such parents have new members in their family, and their isolation would be extirpated, and they will become more family-oriented.

In conclusion, despite the pleasure of having a new baby in the early years of marriage, parents who decide to have babies later can focus on their career, fulfil financial goals and have sufficient time to spend with the family.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 7.0

The response fully addresses both parts of the task with a clear position, well-developed reasons, and a relevant weighing of advantages and disadvantages. Its strongest aspect is the sustained and relevant development of ideas across paragraphs, while the main limitation is occasional unnatural or imprecise word choice that slightly reduces precision.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Response

7.0

The response addresses both questions fully, presents a clear position that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and develops each reason with relevant explanation and examples.

Coherence and Cohesion

7.0

Ideas are organised logically across clear paragraphs with generally effective cohesive devices, though some linkers such as 'Reversely' are used imprecisely.

Lexical Resource

6.5

There is a good range of topic-related vocabulary, but several inaccurate or unnatural choices, including 'take babies', 'extirpated', and 'escalate the expenditures', reduce precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

7.0

A variety of complex structures is used with good flexibility and generally accurate control, with only occasional minor errors that do not impede communication.