Graph Writing # 4 - Unpaid work per week done by people in different categories
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- Written by IELTS Mentor
IELTS Academic Writing Task 1/ Graph Writing - Column Graph:
» You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The diagram below shows the average hours of unpaid work per week done by people in different categories. (Unpaid work refers to such activities as childcare in the home, housework and gardening.)
Describe the information presented below, comparing results for men and women in the categories shown. Suggest reasons for what you see.
» You should write at least 150 words.
Model Answer 1:
The graph shows data between married men and women of the number of hours spent per week on unpaid work. At first glance at the chart, it is noticeable that from all the three categories (without children, with 1-2 children and with 3 or more children), married women spend more hours involved in unpaid work such as housework, gardening and childcare than expected from men.
Married women with children spend more time than without children as the chart shows while having more than three children have invested around 60 hours of unpaid work. This is probably due to the extra load of housework and childcare that is evidently needed to run such a big family.
Furthermore, though there are visible variations of the number of hours of unpaid work carried out by married women, there is no significant variation among all three categories for married men in terms of work hours that are not paid (30 or fewer hours). In fact, it is observed that married men with three or more children spent slightly less number of unpaid work hours. This might be due to the high requirement of commitment needed for a paid job to meet financial requirements for a big family.
In conclusion, married women with three or more children spent the highest number of hours, yet married women from all categories spent a dramatically higher number of hours for unpaid work than married men.
[Written by - Menu Anju ]
Tips for answering this Academic IELTS writing task 1:
1. Look at the question carefully. It asks you to compare the result shown for men and women. So you should not only mention the figures given in the graph. Rather you should use comparisons. An example of comparison is: "The number of unpaid working hours increases for women with the increase of their children's number but that does not affect the total unpaid works done by the men."
2. The question also asks you to suggest reasons for what you see. So you would require giving reasons possibly why the women work more unpaid works that men do and why their working hours in unpaid works increases with the number of total children.
3. There is an interesting fact in the result of the bar graph i.e. men with more than 3 children work even less for the unpaid jobs. Mention this interesting fact in your writing.
4. Since no past year or month is mentioned in this bar graph, your answer should be in present tense. Example: Women spend more time on such unpaid household works than men do.
Summary of the bar graph:
This graph shows the total hour of unpaid jobs like child rearing, household works, cooking, cleaning, gardening etc done by male and female per week. The result of this graph is not related to the paid job of men of women. The result suggests that females spend more time on such jobs than men do. Again, female with more children works more hours than other females. Interestingly the numbers of hours men work in such unpaid works remain almost same regardless of their children number.
Model Answer 2:
The given column graph elucidates the unpaid work done by both married men and women having different numbers of children. A cursory glance is adequate to mention that most women, with or without children, have to do the unpaid household works more than men and more children mean more work for women.
As is seen in the given illustration, married females who do not have any child do around 30 hours of unpaid work weekly, while, male from the same category do only 18 hours of such work. Whilst, men who have one or two children spend an equal amount of time for household works as do the males without children, this is in contrast nearly fifty hours for women. In the case of women, who nurture more than three offspring, spend the highest hours on unpaid works -58 hours per week. Men on the other hand, surprisingly do fewer household works with the increase of their child number.
[Word count = 152, Written by - Arora]
Sample Answer 3:
The given column graph shows information on the duration of unpaid works done by men and women of different categories.
As is presented in the illustration, married women who don't have children do the unpaid-works (gardening, child care and household works) 30 hours per week whereas married men do the similar unpaid jobs for about 18 hours per week. Women, who have one or two children do such work for 50 hours/week but the men from the same category do only 17hours (approximately) each week. The women who have more than 3 kids seem to work the highest amount of unpaid works per week and that is nearly 60 hours. Surprisingly male from the same category work even less; amounting only 16 hours (approximately) of unpaid works.
In summary, women do the most of the unpaid jobs compared to men and with the increased number of children this workload for women increases.
(Approximately 152 words)
( This model answer can be followed as an example of a very good answer. However, please note that this is just one example out of many possible approaches.)
Sample Answer 4:
The given line graph compares the hours of non-paid jobs done by male and female with different numbers of children in an average week. As is observed from the graphs, women worked significantly more hours than men for the household works like child caring, gardening etc. Also, the number of hourly works done as unpaid works got higher with the increase of child number.
As is presented in the line graph, married women work around 30 hours per week for household unpaid works while the men from the same category work for only 18 hours. The works done by females with 1-2 children per week is more than 50 hours and with 3 plus children, the work done by females is 60 hours. Interestingly, the volume of unpaid jobs done by males does not change with the number of offsprings they have except for the men with more than three kids who works even less unpaid household works.
In conclusion, we can say that the volume of unpaid works like household works and child caring increases for women with the increase of their children's number but for men, this remains the same. And female works significantly more hours for that type of household works than the men do.
(Approximately 208 words)
Sample Answer 5:
The given bar graph depicts the average hours of unpaid work done in a week by different categorised people such as married women and men without children, with 1-2 children and with more than 3 children. The first point to note is that men do almost an equal number of hours of work in all three categories.
Men occupied with unpaid works around 18 hours per week in the given groups. On the other hand, women of the given two categories were engaged with 3 fold hours of men’s unpaid work. That is 50 and 55 hours per week by married women with 1-2 children and with more than 3 children respectively. Interestingly, married women without children have done almost half of it that is 30 hours per week.
To sum up, it is clear from the graph that married women were doing more hours of unpaid work compared to married men irrespective of their number of children.
(Approximately 208 words | Written by - Jayesh Joseph)
Model Answer 6:
The given diagram presents information on average weekly unpaid working hours of married men and women according to their family members’ number (without children, 1-2 children, with 3 children). It is clear that women spend more time doing the unpaid works than men do. The unpaid works mainly involve household and child upbringing works like housework, taking care of children, and gardening.
As is illustrated in the diagram, more the number of children the more unpaid working hours could be observed in the case of women and the reverse scenario is true for unpaid working hours of men. Women without children work about 30 hours of unpaid works per week while it is about 17 hours for men without children. The unpaid working hours increases significantly when a married woman has children. For 1-2 children this working hour stands at over 50 hours per week and for 3+ children it reaches to about 60 hours. Interestingly, the weekly unpaid working hours for married men decrease very slightly with the increase of children in the family. While a man works for about 17 hours of unpaid tasks weekly if has no child this working hour decreases to nearly 16 when he has children.
This is a possibility because women most of the time stay at home and do more household and child-rearing tasks than men do. Men, on the other hand, work outside and do less household related tasks. Again married women with children need to work more on such tasks than married women without children.
[Written by – Israa]
Model Answer 7:
The given graph compares the average time spend on unpaid works per week by married men and married women having a different number of children. This nonpaid works mostly involve activities and tasks like cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, housework, and gardening.
Now turning back to the details, women without children spend 30 hours per week on unpaid activities, while men, from this category, do around 18 hours unpaid tasks in seven days. It is noticeable that with the increasing number of children the unpaid working hours for women increase significantly while it remains almost the same for men. This difference between the duration of nonpaid household works done by men and women largely rises with the number of offsprings. Women do about 52 and 58 hours of unpaid activities respectively per week, while, men do fewer hours, approximately 18 and 16 hours a week.
In conclusion, it is clear that women dedicate far time on unpaid work than men. In addition, the higher the number of offsprings, bigger the amount of work for women. However, it does not influence the average hours of men. In fact, it drops a little, as the number of children increases.
[Written by – Bianca]
Married women having three or more children spend almost a third of their weekly time doing household chores. Whereas women having 1 to 2 children spend approximately 50 hours of their weekly time doing the same chores. But women with no children spend half the time as women with 3 children. This could be because of the responsibilitie s of more family members.
Men, on the other hand, spend approximately equal time doing household work weekly irrespective of the number of children they have. In fact, men with three or more children spend a bit less time doing household work. One reason could be that they have to support their family by doing paid jobs.
Overall, married women do more unpaid jobs than married men do at home. In addition, married women with 3 plus children, having the most hours to do such activities as childcare in the home, housework and gardening.
To be more specific, the average hours of men without children, with 1-2 children and with 3+ kids are equal, with just around 20 hours per week.
In contrast, married women without kids tend to spend less time doing household activities than women with 1-2 children at exact 30 hours and just a little above 50 hours in a week. Moreover, married women with more than 3 children do most house chores activities like gardening, childcare and housework, with more than 60 hours per week. It is clear that married men, regardless of the number of offspring in the family, do almost the same amount of household works while it increases for married women with the number of child in the family.
It is presented in the graph that as the family grows with more children, household responsibilitie s for a wife and/or a mother also surmount. But for men, it stays almost constant, interestingly in some cases it slightly decreases. Among married couples without children, women do 30 hours of no-pay housework compared to men who spend roughly 19 hours doing such works in a week. On the other hand, for married people with 1 to 2 children, there is a noticeably rise in unpaid work hours for females which comprise of more than 50 hours per week, while for males, it remains the same, almost 19 hours. Furthermore, for parents with 3 or more children, the unpaid household work for females pile up to 60 hours per week, but in the case of men, it decreases by 1%.
As a general trend, married women work more hours for household activities than men in all categories. On the contrary, married men's duration of unpaid domestic work is almost indistinguishab le.
It is clear from the graph that, women's household work increases by the number of children. Categorically speaking, married women with no children spend 30 hours on average working for household activities while their spouses spend for these works almost 18 hours a week. Meanwhile, married women with more than three children spend their time for unpaid work threefold more than men without children. Married women with one or two children work almost 52 hours per week for domestic activities while their partners spend 18 hours which is three times fewer.
In contrast, men with more than three children spend 17 hours on such work while their partners spend 60 hours per week for these works which are roughly quadruple higher. It is interestingly noticed that men with three children spend fewer hours doing domestic work than men with no children.
From the overall scenario, it is evident that married women account for the highest average hours spent for unpaid work for all three categories despite having children or not.
Moving to details, women spend the highest amount of time on unpaid jobs compared to men. As a consequence, women have to do more unpaid jobs like childcare, gardening and housework tasks than men. The most striking feature is that married women with 1-2 children and more than 3 children spend an average of 50 and 60 hours on unpaid work respectively whereas married women without children have spent 30 hours of unpaid work. This is probably due to the extra load of household chores, gardening and childcare that is evidently needed to run such a big family. In a contrasting scenario, there are no visible variations among all three categories of married men. Married men, on the other hand, without children and with 1-2 children spend about 18 hours weekly and explicitly do fewer household works with more than 3 offspring.
Generally speaking, women do more unpaid household work than their male counterparts. Overall, men spend the least number of unpaid hours in comparison to women by a significant amount. This shows that married women spend more time taking care of the household activities at home.
Married women who do not have a child, spend fewer unpaid hours of about 30 hours compared to those with children. In addition, the more children women have, there will be an increase in unpaid hours. It also shows that for all 3 categories, women spend the highest amount of amount unpaid hours doing work for their houses. Surprisingly, married men with or without children, contribute the same amount of approximately 18 unpaid hours which means their workload does not depend on the number of children at home. Moreover, with more than 3 children, there is a slight drop in the unpaid hours.
It is noticeable that married women spent more time on household unpaid work than their male counterparts, especially when they have children.
As the data suggests, many married couples are doing very important household works at a zero pay scale. However, the given bar graph compares and contrasts the average number of hours both married women and men spend in different circumstances and conditions. The first category is for those who are without children. The married women without children spend 30 hours per week on such household tasks while this is 20 hours per week for their male counterparts. The second category includes those who have one or two children. In this category, married women spend between 50 to 55 hours per week. On the other hand, men, from this category, do spend 20 hours weekly which is exactly the same as men without children. It outlines that, females' responsibility at the house to complete household work increases with the increase of their children while it remains the same for men.
The last category has men and women who have 3 or more children. In this category, the maximum time on household work is done by women i.e. approximately 60 hours per week, whereas quite fewer than 20 hours per week by men.
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