Chinese Balk at Child-Rearing Costs
November 18, 2013 Leave a comment
Nov 16, 2013
Chinese Balk at Child-Rearing Costs
An easing of the one-child policy might help China address a coming slump in its work force. But the country’s citizens are concerned with another reality: how expensive it has become to raise even one kid. In a country where the cost of living has soared alongside breakneck economic growth, some Chinese are saying that due to economic pressures, they don’t want a second child even if the government allows them to.Beijing’s announcement Friday that couples will be able to have two children if one spouse is an only child was, for the most part, a welcome surprise. A survey on SinaCorp.SINA -0.30%’s Weibo, China’s equivalent of TwitterTWTR -1.59%, showed the majority of nearly 26,000 users who responded the next day would have another child under the new rule. Their reasons ranged from being able to ease the burden on one child having to take care of retired parents to ensuring that the kids won’t be lonely growing up.
Yet roughly 37% still said they would opt out of having another child.
It’s “unaffordable,” wrote one Weibo user. “A semester of kindergarten alone costs almost 10,000 yuan.”
One can’t afford to “give birth, raise them, educate them, house them, foot their medical costs…” wrote another user.
The Weibo comments address what many see as the cost of raising a child right. While foreign formula makers have been under a cloud in China lately, more consumers areskeptical of domestic producers in the light of a 2008 tainted dairy scandal. Many parents also believe private schools are preferable to Chinese schools that teach students to pass China’s national gaokao tests, and nothing else.
Apart from a chance to point out the economic burdens Chinese parents face, the one-child policy loosening also became an opportunity to point out how antiquated the rules remain.
“If both sides are only children, can the couple have four kids?!” wrote one female useron Weibo.
“Be Careful – once our generation gives birth to two kids, our kids won’t be able to do the same because they won’t be only children,” wrote a user from Beijing, addressing the unanswered question of how many children future generations will be allowed to have. Friday’s announcement doesn’t indicate when further loosening might come.
A few users noted that the new policy will shift the dynamics of finding a mate. “I’m not an only child, so if I want to have two children, I have to find a boyfriend who is an only child,” wrote one woman from Henan province.
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