Chinese think raising child is costly

Chinanews, Beijing, July 25 – In a recent survey, 86.3% of the respondents think that raising children is a financial burden. Among this group of people, 45.2% think it is a “quite heavy” financial burden. In addition, more women agree to this view than men, as the survey shows 49.1% of the women hold this view while only 41.7% of men think so, the China Youth Daily reported.
The survey was jointly conducted by the China Youth Daily Social Investigation Center and Qtick.com. Some 2,685 people participated in the survey.
“I once read a report which said that raising a child costs as much as 490,000 yuan in total,” said Ms. Jiang. Two years ago, when she was still not a mother yet, she was quite surprised to hear the news.
However, it becomes more and more evident that raising a child costs a lot. Parents have to pay for the tuition fees and living costs of their children; they have to spend money buying nutrients; in order to send their children to a good school, they have to pay a sum of money as sponsorships to the school. Sometimes, they will need to pay the fees charged for remedial courses, etc. As children's expenditure increases, parents have to allocate more and more of their family savings on child raising. In the survey, 59.0% of the respondents say they can not afford to have a baby because they cannot afford the related expenses.
So, it is quite normal that 58.1% of the respondents worry that they can not create a good living environment for children to grow up.
“Children are kind of luxury goods. Sometimes it might cost the parents a whole life in raising a child. If you are not sure you can let your child grow happily, then it's better not to have any children at all,” said Feifei, a web surfer.
Mr. Ma works in the media industry. “Ever since a baby is born, parents will have to devote a lot of efforts to its care. You wish that your child can receive a good education in a renowned school and it will be clever enough to pass the many examinations that schools give to them. However, before these dreams come true, parents have to devote a lot of efforts to the children. It is by no means an easy task to learn the parenting skills nowadays. In the past, when I was a child, raising children was as simple a task as giving enough food for them, nothing more.”
The survey result shows 39.3% of the respondents agree with Mr. Ma. To them, since children will face great competition in society when they grow up, parents are also put under tremendous pressure.
When asked “do you plan to have a child in future”, 65.1% of the respondents say “yes”, 25.5% of them say “probably so”, and only 1.6% of them give a definitely negative answer.
Some people describe a happy life as getting to know your future husband plus falling in love with him plus getting married plus having a child. Without a child, life won't be complete, a point that is agreed to by 78.5% of the respondents to the survey.