Expense and challenge of balancing work and family life key factors in declining birthrate and shrinking population
China is one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, outstripping the US and Japan in relative terms, a prominent Chinese thinktank has said.
A report released on Wednesday by the Beijing-based YuWa Population Research Institute found that the average cost of raising a child in China until the age of 18 is 538,000 yuan (£59,275) – more than 6.3 times as high as its GDP per capita, compared with 4.11 times in the US or 4.26 times in Japan.
