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Price of parenting: the household maths giving China’s consumers pause

Falling property wealth, job insecurity and sky-high childcare costs are forcing middle-class families to aggressively scale back consumer spending

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A newborn baby is seen with family members at a hospital in Heshan, south China’s Guangdong province, on February 10, 2024. Photo: Xinhua
He Huifengin Guangzhou

Qiu Huiying, a human resources manager in Guangdong, worries in numerical terms when she looks ahead to the next decade: a 20-year mortgage, a 10 per cent loss on her property and thousands of yuan in monthly childcare costs that are set to rise.

She bought a 624 sq ft flat last year, so her mother-in-law could move in and help care for her son. But the purchase now feels less prudent after prices in the 20-year-old complex have already fallen by about 10 per cent.

Like many urban households in China, Qiu’s household faces financial pressures that extend beyond housing. The family’s mortgage is about 5,300 yuan (US$781) per month, while child-related expenses add another 3,000 yuan.

These costs were expected to rise significantly as her son entered school in a country with the world’s second-heaviest child-rearing burden after South Korea, according to the China New Employment Research Centre and the YuWa Population Research Institute.

Forecasts that flexible employment could surpass 40 per cent of urban employment have only fuelled Qiu’s sense of financial insecurity. “This makes me think we need to be even more frugal going forward,” she said.

Her worries reflect a broader reality among middle-class Chinese. Even as Beijing rolled out childcare subsidies and stimulus measures to spur domestic demand and encourage births, families were saving more, taking on less debt and cutting discretionary purchases, analysts and household heads said.
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