These days, people worldwide tend to start their families at a later stage in life. There can be many explanations for why this is the case, and it can bring both merits and demerits to our communities. In my view, this trend may be undermining our lives as a whole.
At the outset, there is a multitude of causes leading to this change. Firstly, one of the biggest reasons is people’s preference to pursue their working careers rather than having kids. Many individuals have the inclination to build up a glamorous and successful career before eventually settling down. Moreover, as raising children costs a fortune, a wide range of people cannot afford to do so during the early stage of their life. So instead, they opt to polish up their working life and save up money so as to work on their family life later on in a more comfortable fashion.
However, this pattern might be taking a toll on societies and individual families. First and foremost, for families, this predilection towards starting a family later in life is aiding the expansion of the ever-widening gap between different generations. Due to the age gap between parent and child, they have very few in common and even fewer mutual interests and hobbies. Therefore, ties between family members become weakened and possibly even broken. Another flaw this trend may give rise to is an ageing population. Since so many choose not to start their families early in life, senior citizens make up the bulk of society because fewer children are born annually. As a result, it could be detrimental to many parts of society. In areas such as IT or engineering, there is a constant need for young and bright-minded talents to keep the industry going; without a continual flow of younger people and only having the older generation to rely on, they may come to a halt or could even enter a vicious circle of decline.
In conclusion, starting up on family life late in life is becoming more and more prevalent among citizens internationally, while it could have some definite benefits, numerous drawbacks also arise due to this phenomenon. In my opinion, the cons outweigh the pros, leading to this shift becoming a negative one.