Quote:
Originally Posted by willx
Right, but we're talking about Japan here. Heck, even those USA numbers are understated. Read your own link. That amount is just for food, shelter and other necessities. Raising kids costs a lot more than that due to "non-necessities" .. especially in "affluent modern nations" ..
Look at those numbers and adjust them for "non-essentials" and then apply an additional cost-of-living modifier depending on jurisdiction. Then multiply that by 3 kids. Then add on costs related to the cost of living of the parents themselves. This also wouldn't account for things such as: non-linearity of housing costs for larger family sizes, private tuition costs (private school? cram school? study guides?) and anything else that I've missed.
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On the flip side, there are also income savings, like hand me downs, and most people(90%+) don't go to private school or go for tutoring/cram school. Also, at later ages many of the "personal non-essential" items can be paid for by the children themselves (by working part time jobs).
My own family of 4 lived quite comfortable with my father earning on average 60-80k over the course of his career(my mother was a housewife), and my sister and I attended private school (but no tutoring). In addition our house got burnt down in a fire. However private schools in Ireland are partially subsidized.
However we had the advantage that my mother did not work, which resulted in many cost savings (no day care for one thing). My mother did some part time work as we got older. We also got some loans from grandparents at certain times(around that fire in particular).
Even in recession Ireland has high fertility rates (if anything they've gone up...). I don't know why Ireland is like this, maybe we just live more economically.
However, college tuition does change the cost balance quite a bit, but then I have my doubts that college as it is now will continue into the future (that's a conversation for another thread though).