IELTS Academic writing: USA marriage and divorce rates between 1970 and 2000, and the status of adult Americans.

The charts below give information about USA marriage and divorce rates between 1970 and 2000, and the status of adult Americans in two of the years.

Sample Answer:
The first bar graph illustrates the number of marriages and divorces in the USA from 1970 to 2000. The second line graph represents proportion of adult Americans belonging to different marital status in the same time period.

Overall, it is apparent that a downward trend was observed in marriage rates. Although majority of adults were married in the given time frame, the proportion of single and divorced Americans raised in 2000.

The number of marriages were same in both 1970 and 1980 at 2.5 million. However, this number decreased gradually to 2 million in 2000. On the contrary, divorce rates were low in 1970, at about 1 million which increased to 1.25 million in 1990 after reaching a peak of 1.5 million in 1980. In 2000, number of divorces were half to that of marriages, that is 1 million.

The highest proportion of adult Americans were of married status, accounting to 70% in 1970, however it declined to 60% in 2000. On the contrary, the percentage of never married Americans climbed from 15% in 1970 to 20% in 2000. While the proportion of widowed Americans remained the same, divorce status rose slightly to 10 % in 2000.

Band 7