Prompt: Having children later in life Task 2:  In some countries, men and women are having children late in life. What are the reasons for this development? Do the advantages of this outweigh its disadvantages?

In this day and age, there's an increasing number of people who choose to delay childbirth due to several reasons. This trend would exert both positive and negative effects on families as well as society. Ċ The driving force behind this trend is changing employment patterns. In the past, men used to be the breadwinner in almost every family but that isn't the case for today's society. A large majority of women now choose to pursue education and enter the workforce and undertake imperative positions. This has led to the fact that they cannot maintain a work-life balance and therefore prioritize career over marriage. Another factor is that the cost of bringing up a child including food, clothes, and education is becoming increasingly expensive, causing people's hesitation to have a baby. Ċ Delaying childbirth could be beneficial to families. Since parents give birth to their children at an older age, they would be more experienced and financially stable to bring up and educate their offsprings. Hence, children could obtain a better family background and education, enabling them to become fully developed. In addition, parents would also reap benefits from this trend as their first working years are not interrupted by childcare tasks. However, when aged couples have a baby, the mother would suffer from various health problems such as diabetes and backache and the baby would run a higher risk of Down syndrome. Moreover, society would have to undergo the problem of an aging population due to the low rate of fertility, which triggers a lack of labor. Ċ In conclusion, there are causes such as career and financial concerns that drive people's decisions to have children later in life. This tendency would impact families and society in both advantageous and disadvantageous way.