Cost of raising a child in Thailand: An analysis from Intergenerational Transfer Study

This study aims to (1) estimate the cost of raising a child (age 0-14) in Thailand and (2) examine inequalities of that cost by household quintiles, in terms of household’s burdens and subsidies received from the government. The analysis was done by using intergenerational transfer approach The cost of raising a child is measured by the summation of age-specific per capital consumption expenditure of the population age 0-14 analyzed from Thailand ‘s  2017 National Transfer Account (NTA).  Findings show that the total cost of raising the child (age 0-14) stands at around 1.57 million Baht (in real value). Nearly half of the cost is “private consumption expenditure” and the other half is “public consumption expenditure”. Education consumption accounts for about 32% of the total cost (private: Public/28:4), health consumption 7% (private: Public/4:3) and other consumption 61% (private: Public/41:20). By household quintiles, the total cost of raising a child from Q5 household is 2.5 times of that of the child from Q1 household (Q5/Q1: private education consumption 35 times, private health consumption 14 times, public education consumption 0.56 times, public health consumption 2.07 times). By using the Kakwani Index, the household’s burden of raising a child (measured by private consumption expenditure of the child) is progressive while subsidies from the government (measured by public consumption expenditure on the child) is regressive to household’s socioeconomic status. (Note: Cost of raising a child can be considered as “financial burdens” of the household at the present time, but “investment” in human capital in the long time.)