Want a Kid? It Could Cost You Up To Half a Million Dollars...

Sunday, August 14, 2005 Posted: 07:57 AM JST

Does parenthood attract you? Are you looking forward to hugging that little bundle of joy? Better get your wallet ready. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has calculated it will cost you a minimum of 13 million yen (USD 119,000) to raise your offspring to the age of 21. It could go as high as 60 million yen (USD 549,000).

The report with these calculations was submitted by economic and fiscal policy minister Heizo Takenaka on Friday. It is the the first attempt by the Japanese government to estimate the cost of raising children in Japan. This has become critical as the country's birthrate has dived the past 20 years. Japan's population is expected to shrink starting next year.

During the research, expenses for education, food, health and medical care were compared between childless households and those with one child. It was assumed that the child would live at home for those twenty years and continue its education uninterrupted until 21. The average difference between the two types of households came to about 13.02 million yen.

However, this is not a very reliable way to calculate the real expenses as childless couples will expend more, just because they can. In this report, for example, education was estimated to cost 5.28 million yen (USD 48,270). Insurance companies however estimate the true cost of education to be at least 8.5 million yen (USD 77,700).

This assumes the kid going through the public school system. Send your kids to private schools and suddenly the bills skyrocket to 44 million yen (USD 402,250). This would raise the cost of raising your loved offspring to 60.6 million yen (USD 554,000)...

But then again, each parent will agree that children are really priceless.

Keywords: national_news

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