Because of the inflation and the increase of living cost, Chinese young couples seem to be more anxious about raising a baby than years ago, especially for those who living in first-tier cities, like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Taking Shanghai for example, it will spend over 30,000 a year on average for raising a child from his birth to graduation from primary school, so it seems impossible for a young couple if they can live up with such high pressure without stable income. Specifically, as it recorded in 2010, a Shanghai family spent directly 32719.5 RMB a year to raise a baby from 0-3 years old, 31943 RMB for 4-6 years old, 31226 RMB for 7-12 years old. Around 35% of parents individually suffered high stress caused by raising a baby.
People who are becoming parents are the generation born in 1980’s, and as the single child, they are labeled as “the entitled generation”. However, time flies, and ever spoiled generation are becoming mothers and fathers and learn to take care of a baby when they have to suffer fierce competition in workplace. Taking all of economical and psychological factors into consideration, 45.3% of young couples stated that they give up plans of giving birth to a second child even if it is allowed by policy in the future. What on earth cost parents so much? The answer seems complicated, the expenditure comes from hospital charges, baby necessities, like powder and diaper, nursery school tuition, kindergarten tuition, and extra payment for training classes to cultivate their interests for art or anything else in order to make them outstanding in the future.
In Shenzhen(深圳), a family will spend 40,000-60,000 RMB to raise a baby from 0 to 6 months. Except high price caused by inflation, parents also worried about the quality of baby products, powder is a typical example because of its serious inspection issues in mainland China. Moreover, the 80’s shared globalization and they come to be more open to show their personality than their parents, so it is absolutely a sacrifice for young mothers to give up a promising job with high income and equal large workload, they have no choice but to pay more attention to their beloved babies. What they lost maybe not only high income, but also a good opportunity for their professional development.
