Parents Spend Over W1 million a Month Raising Young Children

Parents with young children spend around one-third of their income or W1.07 million a month on raising their kids, according to a recent poll (US$1=W1,144).

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The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family asked the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education to survey 1,202 mothers with children under nine years of age and found that their monthly household spending amounted to W3.46 million, of which 31 percent went to raising their kids.

Parents with three children spent W808,000 on the oldest child, W559,000 on the second and W412,000 on the third.

The main areas of expenditure are nursery schools or kindergartens (20.9 percent), food (14.9 percent), private tutoring (14.4 percent) and insurance and savings (14.1 percent).

A whopping 90 percent of the mothers said they felt the cost was burdensome -- 33.3 percent "very" and 56.7 percent "somewhat".