Cost of babies

[Mark31]

In Australia we have (soon to be had?) a baby bonus. When it came out, there was a lot of talk that welfare class teenagers would have babies just to get the cash.*

At the time of this conversation between two pregnant women, the bonus was worth $4000.

"Nobody would have a baby just to get the baby bonus"
"Gosh no, it's not even enough to outfit the nursery"

This conversation was dead serious. Even if we'd had to buy everything new for the first 12 months, we wouldn't have even gone within coo-ee of one quarter of the bonus.**


* Births to teenagers, already a low rate, have continued their long term decline
** We did use cloth nappies. I rarely found it onerous. Using icky mucky disposables would certainly cost more.

[sonofczar]

In Canada we have the same thing, $100 a month until age 6.  It's sad that there are a lot of people who will have 10 kids just so their child tax and baby bonuses go up and they can use it as their money.  I wish they would get rid of all these baby programs, if you can't afford kids, you shouldn't be having them.  Besides, kids aren't very expensive.  At least not if your tastes aren't very expensive.

[matchewed]

In Canada we have the same thing, $100 a month until age 6.  It's sad that there are a lot of people who will have 10 kids just so their child tax and baby bonuses go up and they can use it as their money.  I wish they would get rid of all these baby programs, if you can't afford kids, you shouldn't be having them.  Besides, kids aren't very expensive.  At least not if your tastes aren't very expensive.

By a lot do you mean a little? I'd love to see data supporting your claim as I hopped over to statcan.gc.ca and looked up average children per family and no matter what region of Canada I checked it never went over 2 kids per family. Now I'm looking at averages so maybe just maybe there is something strange going on here with how averages are calculated. Maybe the census misses the lots of families you're referring to. Or maybe you're just making a random claim.

On topic though this reminds me of an intern who decided to mention to me that it costs 1 million dollars to raise a child to 18. I asked him to do the math on a per year calculation then get back to me on whether that sounded realistic. Needless to say he used the "I heard that somewhere" defense when he realized how asinine that claim was.

[jrhampt]

If there were financial benefits to having a child instead of financial penalties, I might consider having one.  As it is, our income is too high to take advantage of the tax deductions for having them, and we would take a big hit financially either paying for daycare or losing one of our incomes if we decided not to use daycare.

[Norman Johnson]

In Canada we have the same thing, $100 a month until age 6.  It's sad that there are a lot of people who will have 10 kids just so their child tax and baby bonuses go up and they can use it as their money.  I wish they would get rid of all these baby programs, if you can't afford kids, you shouldn't be having them.  Besides, kids aren't very expensive.  At least not if your tastes aren't very expensive.

You do realise it's taxible income right? And unless you are using fertility drugs (expensive!) it's hard to have ten kids under 6 in order to get the $100 a month for all of them. And I don't see "a lot of people" towing around ten kids. Where are you living?

[lisahi]

If there were financial benefits to having a child instead of financial penalties, I might consider having one.  As it is, our income is too high to take advantage of the tax deductions for having them, and we would take a big hit financially either paying for daycare or losing one of our incomes if we decided not to use daycare.

Daycare. That is what is driving up the bills for most people. Daycare priced as if these kids are receiving honors-level education. I think daycare is a third of my sister's monthly salary. If they have more kids before their first turns 5, there will be a point where my sister's husband will have to be a stay-at-home dad because his salary per year will be less than the cost of daycare. They can't wait until their child enters kindergarten and can go to school for free.

[killingxspree]

daycare, work and a mortgage sounds like my idea of hell...

[mpbaker22]

I can't decide what I think of these incentives.  They seem good on the surface, but so many of them seem to assume that the parents ought to be working outside the house for 40+ years.  I think some countries pay for daycare, but what does that do?  It encourages the parents to work.
Other countries give both parents paid time off.  But again, that assume they need to have been working beforehand and actually treats those who work for themselves and have a child unfairly ...

Unfortunately, any subsidy will carry incentives that might not be foreseen.