BEIJING (Realist English). The average cost of raising a child until the age of 18 was 485,000 yuan ($76,556) in China in 2019, which was 6.9 times China’s GDP per capita, much higher than many countries including the US, France, Germany and Japan, according to a new report released on Tuesday. This is reported by the Global Times with reference to the report of the analytical center YuWa Population Research.
This figure is much higher than in many developed countries, including the USA, France, Germany and Japan. It is assumed that the nation should spend 5% of GDP annually to raise the birth rate to the level of developed countries. The cost of raising a child in the United States was 4.11 times higher than American GDP per capita in 2015. In the UK (in 2021) it is 5.25 times lower, and in Germany (2018) – 3.64 times. Among 13 countries in Europe, Asia and America, China ranks 2nd in terms of expenses for raising a child under 18. The first place is taken by South Korea. The birth rate in South Korea is the lowest in the world: 0.84 as of 2020.
The average cost of child maintenance in Chinese urban families is 630 thousand yuan, and in rural families – 300 thousand yuan. Shanghai ranks first among all Chinese mainland cities with an average cost of 1.03 million yuan, followed by Beijing with 969 thousand yuan. For comparison, families in the Tibet Autonomous Region in the south-west of China spend an average of 293 thousand yuan on raising a child under 18.
Urban families spend an average of 631 thousand yuan on raising their first child, families with two children spend an average of 497 thousand yuan per child, and families with three children spend 377 thousand yuan per child.
The high cost of raising children is one of the main factors that prevent couples of childbearing age from thinking about having a child.
According to the official representative of the National Health Commission Yang Jinrui, the desire of young people to have children continues to decline, while women of childbearing age planned to have an average of 1.76 children in 2017, 1.73 children in 2019 and 1.64 children in 2021. Meanwhile, a total of 8.14 million marriages were registered in 2020, which is 1.13 million less than in 2019. The decline continues for the seventh year in a row. With the number of newborns in 2021 at 10.62 million, the total fertility rate in China was 1.15, which is one of the lowest rates in the world.
