China’s market for children’s goods and services grows as family incomes rise

Name: China faces demographic challenge as birth rate drops despite government efforts
Uploaded: 2021-02-28T08:41:56.000Z
Duration: 1 min 31 s
Description: China faces demographic challenge as birth rate drops despite government efforts

The country’s market for goods and services for children is worth almost US$700 billion, according to local media

Survey suggests it is common for 30 to 50 per cent of Chinese parents’ spending to go on their children

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Children make birds’ nests with their parents at a scientific carnival in Beijing, where activities for families have become lucrative. Photo: Xinhua

Kristin Huang

Published: 4:41pm, 28 Feb 2021Updated: 5:01pm, 28 Feb 2021

Children’s money is money earned most easily, goes a saying in China’s consumer market.

Covering kids’ clothes, food and drink, sports equipment and all kinds of extracurricular activities, the Chinese market for goods and services for children has expanded to 4.5 trillion yuan (US$695 billion), state media outlet Economic Daily reported on Sunday.

The growing market focused on kids comes with affluent, urban Chinese parents paying increasing attention to their children’s health and well-rounded growth.

A typical weekend day for Jiang Cong, a mother in Beijing’s Changping district, entails picking strawberries in a rural garden in the morning, then dining with friends in a mall before accompanying her child to an indoor playground in the afternoon.

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China faces demographic challenge as birth rate drops despite government efforts

The average cost of such a day is about 1,000 yuan, excluding buying toys or paying to attend classes, Jiang told Economic Daily.

The average annual disposable income for Beijing residents last year was about 69,000 yuan, while it was 44,000 yuan for urban residents across the country and 17,000 yuan for rural residents, according to the National Statistics Bureau.

Almost half of the families surveyed in the 2020 Children Economy Insights Report, conducted by analytics firm QuestMobile, said 30 to 50 per cent of their overall spending went on their children. Besides daily necessities, they spent mostly on education, entertainment and classes such as music tuition.