IELTS Writing Task 2 Daily Update 018–On the issue of urbanization (Revised Version)

(2018 Prediction Test 7 for Season3 by Mr Tang Laoya）

I. Title

Young people are leaving their homes from rural areas to study or work in the cities. What are the reasons? Do advantages of this development outweigh its disadvantages?

II. Revised edition

At present there are increasing number of young people who leave their hometown in the country and make their way to the big cities either for further study or job opportunity. This phenomenon is felt due to two factors: objective and subjective ones. In the following essay, I’d like to examine both of them and discuss their strengthes and weaknesses. Finally I will come to my own conclusion.

To begin with, because of various economic pressures, many young adults especially those living in the poverty stricken remote mountainous areas have no choice but leave their poor villages and find a manual work in the city to make a living. These people are usually called migrant workers and the job they take up are more often than not low pay and physically challenged ones like delivery guys, cleaners, waiters in a restaurant or construction site laborers. What’s more, there are also many young folks from the rural district head for the large metropolis to pursue higher education and better career prospects to change their fate and realize their potential. As a result of the above two main reasons, our era witnesses a large scale migration wave from the countryside to the urban areas worldwide.

As far as I am concerned, the boom of migration of rural youth to the big cities poses both good fortunes and threats to the modern society. On the one hand, migrant workers from the agricultural towns to the industrial cities provide much urgently needed labor force for the businesses and factories to help the city achieves sustainable economic development, otherwise the city’s trade, economy or normal operation of life would come to a worrisome stagnation. In addition, rural youth receiving previlidged college education can help them to change their destiny and economically better armed to sustain themselves and their family. On the other hand, when the majority of the young laborers leave their villages in the countryside, there would be lack of farm hand to grow the crops and look after the left-behind seniors and kids. It is reported that this empty nest circumstances generate a lot of social, ethical and mental issues concerning all the relevant parties.

In summary, social and economical burden as well as personal considerations lead to the migration of rural youth to the more developed urban places. In terms of benefits and drawbacks of this social trend,  I believe the the former outweigh the latter.  To my mind, generally speaking, the migration of young people from the countryside to the cities do good to both the city and themselves materially and spiritually while the problems of the desolate cropland due to shortage of working-age farmers and the issue of stay-at-home elders and children are ones of development and could be settled with the progress of time.