Child-rearing expensive

Press, 17 October 1983, Page 14

Child-rearing expensive

Bringing up children is an expensive business, so expensive that it is cheaper to buy an average existing home than to rear a child for 16 years, according to statistics from the New Zealand Househeid Survey, 1981-82, published by the Statistics Department The Home Science Information Service of the University of Otago used

the survey to calculate that for the 16 years of childhood the additional expenditure incurred by a family for . rearing one child amounts to 149,000. The costs start at about $2O to $4O a week for a preschooler, rise to $6O for a school-age child, and peak at $3O for a teen-ager. These costs do not take into account any reduction in in-

come Drought about by a parent’s having to leave work to be at home with the child. In spite of the high costs, the New Zealand family is alive and well and the quality of life of its members has improved, says Professor Barbara Calvert, chairwoman of the department of education at the University

i of Otago. ! > She told a recent seminar that costs were just one aspect of child rearing. Children were demanding, but ; also rewarding. . Professor Calvert’s address is available as a leaflet for $1 from the Home Science Information Service, Box 56, Dunedin.