Cost of raising a child (age 0-14) in Thailand

Abstract

This study aims to estimate cost of raising a child (age 0-14) in Thailand and examine inequalities of that cost by household quintiles. The cost of raising a child is measured by the summation of age-specific per capita consumption expenditure of the population age 0-14 analyzed from Thailand’s 2017 National Transfer Account (NTA). The consumption expenditure comprises of public consumption expenditure (considered as subsidies from the government to the household) and private consumption expenditure (considered as the household’s burdens) which were spent on education, health and other expenses. Findings show that the total cost of raising the child (age 0-14) were 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 (ratio between 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 is progressive while subsidies from the government is regressive, or inequality reducing, to household’s socioeconomic status.