The cost of raising a child - Part One

In November 2006 The Times reported that the cost of raising a child to the age of 21 is now £180,000 (US$352,637).  This is more expensive than the average house price! This is assuming the child is sent to a state school (i.e. no private or boarding school fees to pay). but also makes an allowance for the tuition fees of sending them to university.  After university costs:

The second most expensive time is at primary school. With more mothers now at work, childcare has become a big item on the household bill. The survey estimates that parents spent an average of £9,468 on each child between the ages of 6 and 11 to cover the cost of childcare, uniforms, after-school clubs, trips, sport and other hobbies.

It goes on to say:

It found about 61 per cent of households need both parents to work to cover the cost of bringing up their family. Just under half say that they are concerned how little time they spend with their children because of work.

Note that these are not women going out to work because their husband can't or won't earn money, because they have a career that's important to them or because they want any of the other benefits of working outside the home.  They're doing it because they feel they can't afford to raise their child otherwise.  And bear in mind, we're talking about one or two children here!  (And let's not forget the other possible implication, that the fathers are being taken too much away from home by the need for a second or third job or working overtime.)

The article suggests that the state is going to get more involved in sharing this financial burden.  Now I'm not against help for those few people who are really on the breadline but how have we managed to get into a situation where both parents working outside the home are not bringing in enough money to raise a couple of children?

Is it any wonder that so many women who are single, or married and already short of money, when finding themselves unexpectedly pregnant feel inclined to have an abortion when they are faced with this sort of outrageous cost?

But what is the truth behind the cost of raising children?  Does it really have to cost so much money (bear in mind that in Britain we have the NHS, so no need for medical insurance, and free schooling 5-16 years is taken up by the majority).

I expect several readers will have noticed what I did, which is that the second overall biggest cost is childcare.  The mother, by returning to work, actually increases the household costs.  This cost may include 'extras' such as lunches, petrol and other travel costs.

But let's analyse as best we can where most of the rest of that £180,000 went.  Like me, you're probably thinking a fair amount was taken up by expensive toys, baby equipment and clothes.  We have all bought into the consumer culture to such an extent (and I do not exempt myself from this) that (to take one example) many of us think it is essential to spend a fortune at Christmas and Birthdays on the latest toys.  Research from Britannia Building Society found that the average amount spent by a household with children at Christmas was £840 ($1,646)!  And remember that most people in the UK won't have more than 2 children (1.84 per woman to be exact).

Interestingly before a child is even born an average of £1,560 ($3,056)is spent on items needed for pregnancy and kitting up the nursery!

And according to research you will spend a minimum of £424 ($831) to buy the basics for a new-born baby, based on the lowest prices available in the high street.

Bottle feeding apparently costs over £900 ($1,763) a year and on average £600 ($1,175) is spent on disposable nappies (diapers).

An article by the BBC focused on research that found that the average spending on toddlers' clothing is £406 ($795) a year and that 68% of mothers now spend more money on their toddlers' clothes than they do on their own.  Apparently we have celebrity-worship culture to blame for this one.  Meanwhile parents are urged to take out insurance against their own toddlers who caused over £122m ($239m)of damage to their parents' homes in 2007.

Once your child goes to school you'll need to insure your child's school bag because the average contents (including the bag) are worth £265 ($519).  (If you're wondering, that's mobile phones, hand-held games, MP3 players, designer spectacles, musical instruments etc.)

As they grow up the average family will spend over £12,000 ($25,500) on clothes, £11,086 ($21,719) on holidays, £9,592 ($18,792) on hobbies and toys and £5,518 ($10,810) on pocket money. 

Once they become teenagers children can expect an average of £1,000 pocket money a year.  This money is spent on personal items, such as styling products, socialising (mostly alcohol and cigarettes) and, of course, gadgets.

Well, that gives you some idea where that £180,000 figure came from.

Now how much of this stuff was essential and how much was a luxury?  Even better, how much of it genuinely improved the life of the child and how much of it was just doing what everyone else in modern days society does?  Are the children who had more spent on them any happier?  How much of it was guilt money thrown at the child by parents who didn't have enough time to spend with their off-spring?

Part Two of this post will explore whether it's possible to raise a child without spending £180,000.

Comments

[Sadie Elliott]

Great post. I will be interested to read your second article.

[Jennifer]

Propoganda. Maybe I'm jaded and cynical, but sometimes I think that the state is out to take over parenting altogether! Over here we find that the goal of our schools seem to be to produce good citizens rather than whole people. That is not MY goal, so therefore, we do homeschool. And therefore we either have to cram for the "social studies" part of the yearly testing, or resolve to miss the questions altogether and simply live with it.

Anyway, that is slightly divergent, but what I'm saying is this: could it be that these kind of figures are aimed at weakening the resolve of parents to care for their own children - or to HAVE more than one child?

Until you have a child of your own, you cannot understand well the meaninglessness of such blabberings.

[Sue]

Well, it hasn't cost us anything like that much to raise our children. As you say, there's free medical care and schooling in the UK. I didn't go back to work, and found that Child Benefit covered just about everything else for the first ten years - I actually kept a note of it. I didn't include food - I breastfed, and then the boys ate whatever we were eating, so the added grocery bill wasn't much - but clothes, toys, school trips etc all came out of child benefit. We didn't buy luxury items, and got most school uniform second-hand, and went to places like Bewise for clothes.

When they were teenagers we home educated, and that did cost us about £50 per month on supplies, as we followed a curriculum after the first few years (and bought other books/CDs etc to get us started before that). But it would have been less had we'd remained in the UK. Clothes, however, cost rather less as they lasted longer, and we had friends who passed down their used clothes. Pocket money was about £15 per month, and thankfully they never spent any of it on alcohol or cigarettes. And we still had Child Benefit until they turned 16, even living abroad.

[marie]

Seriously, I don't know why you keep feeling the need to tie it back to abortion. Yes, there's definitely a different view of parenting nowadays, more is no longer considered better, kids are considered more of a financial liability than a financial asset since they no longer work on the family farm... but it still doesn't keep people from having children.

One would think that if the costs were so overwhelming to people that they would never have kids or would stop at one, but no they often go on to have 2 or 3 kids (I think the rate is 2.5 in the US) You have a good point about how we expect more material things for our kids and look at them as necessities when they aren't, but it still has nothing to do with whether a woman will choose to terminate a pregnancy.

[Buffy]

Marie, I am tying it back to abortion because it was part of the series on how to reduce the number of abortions that take place, although I do think that this is a much bigger issue overall. You should read the first post which explains what is going on: http://buffy68.typepad.com/buffys_salon/2007/10/i-wrote-on-an-e.html
Basically I am arguing that in order to reduce the number of abortions that take place we need to make changes within society rather than make abortion illegal.

The second most common type of reason that women quote for having an abortion are socioeconomic ones. That is to say lack of financial support from the father of the child, unemployment or the inability to 'afford' further children etc.

Also, whilst I support the right of anybody to make a choice of how many children they want, an average of less than two per woman, as it is in the UK, is very low when you think how big families used to be. In many countries the overall population is actually declining.

[marie]

But you are reaching when you suggest that those socio-economic reasons have to do with the fact that these women can't afford space camp, designer diaper bags, and a million lessons for their children, when there is absolutely no evidence of that being the case. I agree that there is a lack of support for poor, single mothers (lack of affordable childcare, health care, etc.) and rectifying that may make some difference in giving women more options, but to suggest that abortion is chosen for such frivolous reasons is insulting.

You might find this study interesting, though it's a little old now. It gives statistics on who got abortions, and the biggest groups tended to be unmarried and in poverty. IN POVERTY, not "unable to afford designer toddler duds" but "unable to afford food and doctor bills." Here affordable childcare does become an important factor when we're talking about ways that might reduce abortions because we're talking about single mothers. To compare these women to middle class married couples is comparing apples to oranges- and insulting the apples. The societal outlook you suggest might have an effect on married couples choosing to have more kids, but it'll do nothing for the poor, single, and increasingly minority women who are faced with this decision.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.pdf

It's an American study, but the statistics are likely similar in the UK. Like I said before, you have a point... there is a societal tendency towards fewer kids- but it still has nothing to do with why women have abortions. When you show me the study with predominantly white upper middle class women having abortions because they are worried about affording their fifteen hundred pound nursery, then you can make that claim.