Kids can be expensive!
Many young couples I know shudder to think of having a kid. One of the guys told me ‘I am still a kid…how can I have a kid‘. And he is 30 years of age and so is his wife.
Do people who have a kid have any regrets of having a kid? Do people who are thinking of having a kid consider the financial costs of having a kid?
This is not a class on whether to have a kid, but for those who have a kid! Have you wondered how much does a kid cost you?
Does the cost increase (per month) as the kid’s age increases?
Well have you at least tried enumerating them? School fees, clothes, the doc, the dentist, vitamins, antibiotics, dresses and accessories – the tennis shoes, the swimming class and the badminton racquet, the list just goes on.
Of course I am not talking food, rent, etc. which go to the common pool – and then get divided by say 3 or 4 depending upon how many people are there in the house.
A branded kindergarten school today costs about Rs. 100,000 in the suburbs of the big cities and about Rs. 300,000 in South Mumbai and the posher areas of Delhi and Bengaluru. And my data could be dated.
Then there could be coaching class fees, parties, gifts, entertainment, gadgets,….
Sadly there is very little research in India about such things, and one has to just make estimates. Estimates can obviously go wrong by a mile…and we would not even know about it.
The costs of a kid – right from delivery to their wedding can be a stunning Rs. 1o million – for a kid born in say 2000.
Safely add 8 to 15% per annum inflation for every year after that.
So in case you have decided to have a kid in the year 2013 or 2014, you should estimate a requirement of about Rs. 25 million. This is of course assuming a normal kid, normal delivery, ordinary school, ordinary education. If you throw in an International school – that itself will jack up prices by about Rs. 5 milli0n!
Happily most of this money will be needed back ended, so you do have time to earn it!
However if you think your son needs a brother or a sister…well add another Rs. 40 million to the budget :-).
Abhijit
Not necessarily the costs should be such high. It all depends on what standard of living we want to have and we visualize our kid should have.
Otherwise, how a person with mere 15k salary per month having 5 dependent members could even think of having a kid?
(Still population of our country is rising like anything 🙂 )
saurabh
Present population of India is nearly 125 crore and by 2025 we will beat china to become world largest population.
Do you think people think so much when having kids?No they dont.
subra
Thanks Abhijit and Saurabh if u think a billion Indians read my posts, forget my influencing them!
R SIVA PRASAD
Yes, every indian should think. One child is enough atleast. Second child is very expensive, and out of budget. We have enjoy our life also. We are here to live happily.
saurabh
Subra Sir,
I think those reading your post are well educated and will not b having more than 1 or 2 children but problem is the rest of 90% Indians who have no idea about all this.
sooner or later we will be forced to adopt 1 child policy like china.
The Govt. seems to have forgotten the population control agenda totally.
Jitu
For educated people, situation is slightly better as they do not fall for social pressure or if they do, they have job (fix income source) to somehow make it managable.
As a child I saw a lot of teasing of one of my relative by his Father-in-Law (who was boasting about 6 daughters & 2 Sons) for not going for another kid when the first one was a Daughter 🙂 & guess what he ended up having 3 kids and all of them are girls 🙂
Pravin
the biggest medium term to long term problem for humanity actually is a population collapse! instead of the so called population explosion,there is actually a silent demographic collapse happenign everywhere. in the arab and muslim world, fertility rates are down 80% compared to just one generation back. india is barely above replacement rate of 2.1 .that means by 2050 we will have more older people than kids.japan is already there since last 15 years.
thats a consequence of the nuclear family and amazingly prosperity and better health care.
poor people have more kids not because they have sex because they dont know any better as many condescending people including our govt ministers say,but because it makes rational sense to them.every hand is a helping hand to put food on the table.also,they have more chance of dying younger ,so they tend to produce more children.
once people become prosperous,children turn from an asset into a ‘liability’ – ie something that needs money to be spent on,instead of being an income earner like the chotu at the tea shop.(think abou that before asking child labor to be abolished -they do it because it is their best option).
Pravin
also,one more time: WE DO NOT have a population explosion. we have a DRASTIC death rate reduction. our fertility rates have fallen since independence as we have grown healthier and more prosperous as a nation. it is just about 2.1 now. what has happened is that instead of dying like flies,we now survive childhood diseases and mothers die less frequently. so ,no,we dont reproduce like rabbits.we have only stopped dying like flies
Dhivya
I think the thought process of having two or more kids is different in different financial classes of the society.
The class which is caught up between the high and the low keep finances has a major cause for not having another child.
Till date in indian society., having one child is mandatory to show people that ur fertile 😛