287 words by a whitespace count. This teaching example has an AI-estimated band, not an official examiner score. Read the commentary, then attempt the question yourself.
“Many workers complain of poor work-life balance. What are the causes, and what can be done?”Model answer
287 wordsP1Poor work-life balance has emerged as a defining complaint of workers in many countries, with consequences that extend from individual mental health to broader economic productivity. Examining why this imbalance has developed is essential to devising remedies that can genuinely help.
P2Several factors have eroded the boundary between professional and personal life. Digital communication technology is perhaps the most significant: smartphones and always-on messaging applications mean that employers and clients expect rapid responses outside conventional working hours, making true disengagement from work increasingly rare. In highly competitive job markets, workers themselves often feel compelled to demonstrate commitment through long hours, particularly in sectors such as finance, law and technology, where overwork has become culturally normalised. For parents, inadequate affordable childcare provision forces many, disproportionately women, to compress professional obligations into limited windows, intensifying pressure during working hours.
The effects include elevated rates of anxiety, burnout and stress-related physical illness, each of which reduces the productive capacity that overwork was intended to maximise.
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P4A range of responses is available. Governments can support a right to disconnect. France's framework, for example, provides for arrangements regulating digital work tools to protect rest, leave and personal life rather than a universal ban on every out-of-hours contact. Mandating flexible-working arrangements as a default, rather than a privilege to be negotiated, would give workers greater autonomy over when and where they work. Investment in affordable childcare infrastructure would remove a structural source of pressure for working families. Organisations can reinforce these measures internally by training managers to model healthy boundaries and redesigning performance metrics to reward output rather than presence.
P5Sustainable productivity depends on workers who are rested and engaged, and policies that protect personal time ultimately serve employers as much as employees.