 The cost of raising a child: Equivalence scales in the United StatesPeibin Hou, Falin Sun, Wendiam Sawadgo, Samir Huseynov and Wenying Li Economics Letters, 2025, vol. 252, issue C Abstract: As fertility rates drop to another historical low, understanding the economic burden of child-rearing on household income, a main economic reason for falling birth rate, has become more crucial than ever. This study calculates a subjective equivalence scale explaining how much the income of a two-adult, one-child household should increase to maintain the same level of life satisfaction as a two-adult household, using a nationally representative U.S. sample. The results suggest that the equivalence scale for a two-adult, one-child household is 1.18, indicating that raising a child costs 18 % of a two-adult household’s income. Our analysis indicates that programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) may be overly generous for households with one child, while the tax deduction policy does not cover child-rearing costs sufficiently. Keywords: Equivalence scale; Household resource sharing; EITC; Food assistance; Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:252:y:2025:i:c:s016517652500196x DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112359 Access Statistics for this article Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier |
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