{"id":785970,"date":"2026-07-26T19:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T19:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/785970\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T19:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T19:27:18","slug":"price-of-parenting-the-household-maths-giving-chinas-consumers-pause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/785970\/","title":{"rendered":"Price of parenting: the household maths giving China\u2019s consumers pause"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">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.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">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.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Like many urban households in China, Qiu\u2019s household faces financial pressures that extend beyond housing. The family\u2019s mortgage is about 5,300 yuan (US$781) per month, while child-related expenses add another 3,000 yuan.<\/p>\n<p>These costs were expected to rise significantly as her son entered school in a country with the world\u2019s <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/economy\/china-economy\/article\/3337317\/china-eyes-childcare-overhaul-law-boost-births-fix-demographic-crisis?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">second-heaviest child-rearing burden<\/a> after South Korea, according to the China New Employment Research Centre and the YuWa Population Research Institute.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Forecasts that flexible employment could surpass 40 per cent of urban employment have only fuelled Qiu\u2019s sense of financial insecurity. \u201cThis makes me think we need to be even more frugal going forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Her worries reflect a broader reality among middle-class Chinese. Even as Beijing <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/economy\/china-economy\/article\/3319872\/china-launches-first-national-childcare-subsidies-bid-tackle-demographic-crisis?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">rolled out childcare subsidies<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Qiu Huiying, a human resources manager in Guangdong, worries in numerical terms when she looks ahead to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[550,28,144,334384,334381,101,1076,544,3471,47794,9340,334380,334383,1866,149411,21,334382],"class_list":["post-785970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-beijing","tag-business","tag-china","tag-china-fertility-cost-report","tag-china-new-employment-research-centre","tag-economy","tag-europe","tag-guangdong","tag-japan","tag-ministry-of-finance","tag-peoples-bank-of-china","tag-qiu-huiying","tag-simon-zhao","tag-south-korea","tag-su-yuru","tag-united-states","tag-yuwa-population-research-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}