Costs of Raising Children: China and South Korea Take the Lead, Report Reveals

South Korea has the highest child-rearing cost relative to per capita income in the world, followed by China, according to a report by a Chinese research institute.

According to the American CNN broadcast on the 22nd, the Beijing Population and Public Policy Research Institute, or the YuWa Population Research Institute, stated in its recently released 2024 edition of the “China Child-Rearing Cost Report” that “the cost of raising one child until the age of 18 in China amounts to 6.3 times the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is about $74,800 (approximately 100 million KRW)”.

In China, if a child is sent to college, raising them costs $94,500.

The cost of raising a child until age 18 relative to per capita GDP was the highest in the world in South Korea, at 7.79 times.

Among the surveyed countries, following South Korea and China, Italy (6.28 times), the UK (5.25 times), and New Zealand (4.55 times) formed the top five, while Japan (4.26 times), the US (4.11 times), and Germany (3.64 times) also had relatively high child-rearing costs.

On the other hand, Singapore (2.1 times), Australia (2.08 times), and France (2.24 times) were shown to have relatively lower child-rearing costs compared to income.

The report pointed out that “the Chinese people’s willingness to have children is almost at the lowest level in the world due to high childbirth costs and the difficulty of balancing work and family for women” and that “it would not be an exaggeration to call the current population situation a collapse in the birth population.”