Middle-income families in Australia spend as much as $812,000 to raise two children to the age of 24, states an Income and Wealth Report.
Researchers say that the country has seen a 50 percent rise in expenditure to raise children since 2007. "So it's incredibly expensive, and the main drivers of this are the big ticket items such as food and transport and recreation," said researcher Ben Philip from the National Centre of Social Economic Modelling (NATSEM).
The report states that the most important reason behind such a drastic increase in expenditure on children is because many middle-income families prefer private schools over state-run schools. Parents who send their children to study in private schools spend an average of $216 each week on fee compared to $12 spent on public schools and $81 for Catholic schools,
The average cost of two children for the lower-income family is nearly $45,000. Philips adds that most of this cost is met by the government.
"We actually found around 85 per cent of their (lower-income families) costs were actually paid for effectively by the Government, either through family payments or baby bonuses or school kids' bonus," Phillips said.
A further classification shows that food and transport costs are a major part of the Australian family budget. Lower-income families spend nearly $89,000 on food for two children up to 21 years of age. Transport expenditure has also increased nearly 20 percent.
"We're looking at bigger cars, more cars, airfares. There's higher petrol costs for things like driving the children to soccer on the weekend. When you've got a young family, taking them overseas or even domestically, you've got to pay a lot more for the airfares," Philips explained.
In the face of these expenditures there is very little rise in household income, reveals the report. The average household income has grown only 25 percent since 2007.
"It's extremely expensive and I think part of that expense is the practicalities of life, and there is that teenage boys eat so much for a start," Brisbane mother Jane Campbell told ABC News. She added that there is also some sort of peer pressure involved for the children to fit into a particular social group. The needs can run into branded footwear or gaming consoles like the Xbox or Playstations.
