Refinitiv Newscasts - Explainer: The cost of having a child in China

China Gold International Resources

01/06/2021 18:25

Click the following link to watch video: https://share.newscasts.refinitiv.com/link?entryId=1_rokr7z44&referenceId=tag:reuters.com,2021:newsml_OVEFKRJOR_K15&pageId=RefinitivNewscasts
Source: Thomson Reuters

Description: Married Chinese couples can now have up to three children, but
the cost of raising a child in urban China has deterred many would-be parents.
Rosanna Philpott reports.
Short Link: https://refini.tv/3wJ53Zi

Video Transcript:

>> Married Chinese couples can now have up to three children. The announcement
is a major shift from China's existing limit of two. It's a response to recent
data. There's been a dramatic decline in births in the country and China's
fertility rate has fallen to just 1.3 children per woman. That despite Beijing
scrapping of its one-child policy in 2016. Why the decline? The cost of
raising a child in urban China has deterred many would be parents. >> Because
we're living in a big city such as Beijing, the work pace is fast and it isn't
easy to make money. The cost of time to raise a child is also high. >> How
much does it cost to have a child in China's big cities, $15,700, that's how
much private clinics in China are charging women to give birth. Prenatal tests
and deliveries in public hospitals are usually covered by state insurance, but
resources are tight and more Chinese women are turning to private options. Up
to $55,000, this is how much a postpartum Center in Beijing can cost per
month. As Chinese incomes rise, women are flocking to facilities like this for
professional care and services. Well-off families also typically hire an
in-house nurse maid to look after the mother and baby in the first month at
roughly $2,300. Housing costs in Beijing's Haidian, a district with good
schools hover around $14,000 per square meter, on par with median prices in
Manhattan. Those not eligible for public schools because they lack a Hukou or
residency permit, must attend private schools, which costs roughly $6,000 to
$39,000 per year. Anxious parents, most of them investing in their only child,
sign kids up for private tutoring and extra curriculars such as piano, tennis,
or chess classes. Competition is fierce. In order to ease pressure on children
and boost birth rates by lowering family education costs, China has launched a
clamp down on the country's booming private tutoring industry. An average
family living in Shanghai's upscale Jinshan district spends roughly $131,000
per child from birth through to junior high school, typically ends at age 15.
That's according to a 2019 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences report. The
report says low-income families in the same areas spent over 70 percent of
their earnings on the child. High costs and the pressures of having grown up
as only children, as well as the expectation that they'll support their
parents, have made many young people in China reluctant to have kids of their
own