The cost of raising a child
The issue I would like to address is the amount of money a new mother
has to spend on their first child. In a
society many parents see buying a house as an important part of starting a
family, the cost of housing in cities is rising, pushing double-income
households to the brink. Also in Australia the younger generation is starting
their earning years later in life after earning a degree, paying of their study debt, the costs of raising children is a key part of
the discussion couples are having when thinking about starting a family. So looking at those issues how much does a
parent really spend on raising a baby? The cost of raising just one child from
a baby to parental independence which is the age of 24 in Australia is $597,
949. Generally, second and third children cost less
due to economies of scale resulting from hand-me-downs and shared
infrastructure, such as bedrooms and furniture. Here is the cost of raising one
child in comparison to raising 2.7 children in Australia.
Table
1: Updates from June 2010 to June 2012 based on ABS Cat
6401.0 - Consumer Price Index, Australia, Jun 2012 by category. Based on NATSEM
figures.
|
Categories
|
One child:
June 2012 |
2.7 children: June 2012
|
|
Food
|
$
105,774
|
$
285,590
|
|
Housing and Utilities
|
$
118,592
|
$
178,456
|
|
Recreation and Entertainment
|
$
77,245
|
$
154,488
|
|
Health and other services
|
$
92,881
|
$
164,848
|
|
Clothing and Equipment
|
$
64,508
|
$
131,202
|
|
Transport
|
$
100,002
|
$
129,978
|
|
Education and Childcare
|
$
38,947
|
$
106,742
|
|
Totals:
|
$
597,949
|
$
1,151,304
|
Looking at this issue I would like to
help parents feel comfortable financially and also able to buy the stuff
they want for their new born baby. I believe that designing a product that can
grow with the child would be financially beneficial for parents today and
having it durable for as long as possible or look at the product having many
uses rather than just the one. So that parents don’t have to buy so many
individual things for their baby.
The reasons I am interested in this area for my final work
is because I am pretty close to this as my sister is getting married and wants
to start a family soon. Talking to her about her wedding and buying a house I
realised that starting up a family needs a lot of money. Also talking to her
friends which have new born babies I realised that it’s very hard to find what
they need that’s affordable. I would
like to help all new mothers be able to afford not just their needs but also
their wants. Also another reason that this subject area interests me is because
recently working at an ice cream store I get to see more children and families.
It’s an area of design where you can make things much more fun and vibrant. So
it has a huge area of aesthetic and technical promise.
My approach to ensure I deeply understand the problem topic
and my user is to accompany a mother for a day to see all the things she uses
and needs to raise her baby. Also looking at product interaction with the
products the mother has purchased and what other products she uses that may not
be originally for the baby but she finds it useful to use for the baby. I will
record my observations and then accompany another mother for another day. So I
can see different mothers and their techniques of looking after their baby.
Another approach would be to look deeply into research done
by researchers and their views on what parents are spending in today’s world.
Looking at statistics is important to get a rough idea of numbers of how much
parents are spending on their children in comparison of what they earn.
