Chapter 9 5. Raising a child with a moldy head

As of the end of 2009, the permanent resident population of Shanghai was 19.2132 million.The resident birth population is 164,600, of which 92,300 are born under household registration; the birth rate of permanent residents is 8.64‰, and the birth rate of registered population is 6.62‰; the natural growth rate of permanent residents is 2.7‰, of which the natural growth rate of registered population is -1.02‰.Since 1993, the natural change of Shanghai household registration population has shown a negative growth trend for 17 consecutive years. Shanghai conducted a survey on fertility issues, and the survey results showed that 7.93% of the registered population in Shanghai said they were unwilling to have children, an increase of 3.37 percentage points compared with 2003.Among the floating population in Shanghai who do not wish to have children, 2.49% of the population is 1.1 percentage points higher than that in 2004.

In Shanghai, the heavy cost of raising children is the main reason why young couples are unwilling to have children, and having children has become a veritable "expensive" child.Some people joked that they were "dinked".So I have to say that for families with a weak economic foundation, having a child in Shanghai is a disaster. Touch mold head, also known as "touch lintel head".In Shanghai dialect, it means "unfavorable things, bad luck", and can also be simply understood as bad luck. Why do you say that giving birth to a child in Shanghai is a "bad luck"?The reason is still the same: too expensive.As the saying goes, "Raise a child to prevent old age", but in Shanghai, if you have a child, you may age faster.

Sun Che, the deputy general manager of an online game company in Shanghai, gave birth to a lively and lovely baby girl by caesarean section at Pudong Oriental Hospital. The 5-day hospitalization cost about 6,000 yuan, plus the 5,000 yuan for the prenatal checkup, she spent more than 10,000 yuan.Although Ms. Sun's expenses are expensive, they are not considered high expenses in Shanghai, where childbearing consumption is rising steadily. In 2004, the United Family Hospital on Xianxia Road, Changning District, Shanghai began to operate. It is a small blue and white four-story building.Pan Zhongying, acting general manager of the hospital, said: "Our hospital's package price is more than 6,000 US dollars for a natural birth, and 11,000 US dollars for a caesarean section."

In fact, before the "sky-high" maternity fee of 100,000 yuan appeared, it was not uncommon for Shanghai's large-scale comprehensive medical institutions and maternal and child health care centers to call "luxury" maternity charges: the VIP obstetrics of Shanghai International Peace Maternal and Child Health Hospital paid a day's hospitalization fee of 5,000 yuan, and the registration fee for prenatal examination is 300 yuan; the Meihua Obstetrics and Gynecology Department located in Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University quoted a price of 25,000 yuan for a normal delivery, and 45,000 yuan for a caesarean section, and the latter was limited to 4 days. The fee for more than one day is 3,000 yuan...

Sun Che's mother-in-law said that in the era of "intensive production" in the past, giving birth to a child was like buying a cabbage, which was very cheap: "More than 20 years ago, I only spent more than 50 yuan to give birth, which was only a month's salary. Now the salary It has increased by 30 times, but the cost of having a child has increased by more than 100 times!" Nowadays, it costs four to five thousand yuan, or even tens of thousands of yuan, to give birth to a child.Sun Che's mother-in-law counted on her fingers: before hospitalization, she spent more than 2,000 yuan in the hospital; after hospitalization, painless childbirth, medicine expenses, bed expenses, treatment expenses, baby swimming, etc. were added together, and the bill was 7213 yuan. In addition, the cost of various supplements is nearly 10,000 yuan.

From 50 yuan to 10,000 yuan, the cost gap in the middle can generate electricity. The phenomenon of "child slaves" plagues the "post-80s" group. More than 80% of young parents feel that the financial pressure of raising children is too great. The proportion of infertility among married people continues to rise, and there are more and more "DINKs". "The imported milk powder costs more than 100 yuan, and you need to use diapers to pull it out. The brand-name ones cost more than 100 yuan. You have to pay for it in and out. The whole thing is a two-way charge!" This line in humorously summarizes The living conditions of the "slaves".

In Shanghai’s special survey on childbearing issues, high cost of childcare is the primary reason for people’s reluctance to have children, accounting for 52.99%. 48.28% and 35.10%.It can be seen that the increase in the cost of raising children and the pressure of competition have made more and more people choose not to have children or to delay childbearing. In addition, there is an obvious positive relationship between the willingness to have children and the income level.Among the registered population in Shanghai, the average willingness to have children with a monthly income of 2,000 yuan or less is 1.00, those with a monthly income of 2,001-6,000 yuan are 1.12, those with a monthly income of 6,001-10,000 yuan are 1.16, and those with a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan for 1.32.

As the first-generation only child in China, Huang Doudou, a member of the Shanghai Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference and a well-known dancer, has a deep understanding of the "child slave" issue.He said that for one-child families, whether to have a child or a career, and how to better take care of the elderly after having children has become a "trilemma". "Our generation of only children has entered the '4+2+1' model. To support 4 elderly people, if the couple raises another child, sometimes they have to be 'dinked'." Huang Doudou used numbers as an analogy, Once one of the four elderly people gets sick, the couple will be overwhelmed by taking care of them and accompanying them, not to mention adding an extra child?Moreover, children have no fewer things than the elderly. Every step of his growth requires the energy of his parents.In this way, "it is simply difficult for the elderly and children to have both."

Zhang Yan, a white-collar worker working in an advertising company in Shanghai, believes that once she gets pregnant, she will change from a wealthy white-collar worker to a super "negative man". Zhang Yan said: "I am born in the 80s. I just got married and have little savings. Excluding the monthly mortgage, my husband and I live a decent life. Although we are not rich, we still have a lot of traveling abroad and shopping. .But if I have a baby, not to mention the little money now, I will definitely be stretched, and I will have no free time of my own." Zhang Yan and her husband have a combined monthly income of more than 8,000 yuan. Excluding the monthly mortgage of 2,500 yuan and the monthly living expenses of utilities and coal of 3,000 yuan, the remaining 2,500 yuan is basically a month for the two of them. "Entertainment expenses", "Although it is not a lot, but at least it is very nourishing."

"But 2,500 yuan 'pocket money' is really not enough to have a child." Zhang Yan said that she is almost 30 years old this year, and she is indeed at the age to have children. Forum to exchange experiences with other expectant mothers. "But when I chatted with expectant mothers, my idea of ​​having a baby was completely shaken." Ms. Liu said: "Some mothers in the forum bought expensive prenatal training devices and fetal heart devices from the United States, and some It costs thousands of yuan to sign up for yoga classes and music prenatal education classes for pregnant women. Not to mention the price of supplements to eat during pregnancy, the current "basic configuration for pregnant women" such as a full set of prenatal education and fetal favorites cost more than 2,000 yuan. "

"If I have a child, my husband and I will lose all our pocket money, and our standard of living will have to drop, so that we can afford a child, and we will become a 'child slave'." Zhang Yan said, It is precisely because they are afraid of losing their current life that even though the old man urges them to have children quickly, the young couple still insist on the "two-person world". "When I think about life after having a child, I just want to be 'DINK'." In addition to the "early education" expenses during pregnancy, Zhang Yan is even more troubled by the monthly expenses for a child that online mothers posted. "The cost of pregnancy is close to the limit of what my husband and I can bear. If you include the expenses after giving birth, I can't even imagine that apart from paying off the mortgage and raising a child, I have nothing left for myself." In many forums in Shanghai, many "post-80s" netizens have posted posts about their babies' consumption this year, which have become the focus of everyone's attention-"please confinement wife, 4,500 yuan a month", "baby needs to drink 1,500 yuan of milk powder a month ", "Daughter goes to a good kindergarten for 5,000 yuan for two months" and so on.All kinds of posts have their own merits, but they all express one meaning in common: "It is difficult to have a child, and it is even more difficult to raise a child." The netizen "Bao Ma" said that the monthly salary of himself and her husband is more than 10,000 yuan. However, in addition to the monthly housing loan of more than 5,000 yuan, the monthly expenses of the son are 7,000 yuan. The small amount of money has to be saved as a son’s education fund, and my husband and I are basically earning nothing now.” The post reads: "The two elderly people are old. In order to take care of the children, they can only hire a babysitter. The monthly salary of the nanny is 2,000 yuan. The son is now in a music kindergarten. The monthly tuition for the kindergarten and The food expenses are 3,000 yuan, plus the children’s clothing, milk powder, insurance, English interest classes and piano tuition classes on weekends, and 7,000 yuan is a conservative estimate.” When children go to school age, the cost of education is the big deal.Mr. Sun, the parent, said that when his son was promoted to junior high school, the adults seemed to have peeled off a layer of skin, from the sprint examination class and oral English training class of more than 5,000 yuan a month, to the "communication fee" for relying on relationships and favors, to the final school selection fee. It cost nearly 100,000 yuan to go to a key middle school, and this is only the compulsory education stage.It is no wonder that more people choose not to have children, it is too expensive. At the end of June 2009, the School of Psychology of East China Normal University and a parenting website jointly released the survey report "Research Report on Parenting Styles of Chinese Families (0-6 years old)".According to the report, Shanghai citizens need to spend more than 118,000 yuan to raise their children to the age of 6. "In the 1960s and 1970s, it only cost a few yuan to have a child. In the 1980s, it cost 40 to 50 yuan, but now it has risen to 4000 to 5,000 yuan. So my wife and I plan to save enough money to talk about children." Mr. Guo, who is married but has been in a world of two people, said with emotion, "I will not have children unless I save enough 1 million yuan, because the children of friends around me are studying in international schools, and the children's character development is very good, so I I also plan to let my children grow up in an environment like an international school. For this environment, I must first earn enough money, otherwise this year's crisis and next year's crisis will make my family very uneasy." Ms. Huang's child has just entered elementary school. In order to let the child go to a good school, Ms. Huang bought a second-hand house in Jing'an District.Ms. Huang said: "It is true that I bought a house with my teeth. I spent all my family's savings, and I rented out the new house I used to live in." universal. In January 2006, some experts calculated that the cost of raising a child in a big city was about 500,000 yuan. However, according to the various childcare expenses mentioned by parents, it should have far exceeded this figure.Under such huge economic pressure, some parents laughed at themselves: "Having a child is like being locked in a stock, but the stock can be unwinded, but this stock will never be untied." "Raise a child to guard against old age, but raising a child now can only make people get older and older, and life is too stressful." Ms. Huang said frankly. The world's largest human resources consulting organization "ECA International" released the latest ranking of the global cost of living index in July 2010. Tokyo, Japan jumped to the highest living cost city in the world, and Shanghai ranked 46th among 240 cities in the world. Most expensive Chinese cities. Shanghai's high housing prices and high cost of living have driven away a considerable number of talents.Someone has long seen this fact clearly.Therefore, Tu Qiyu, secretary-general of the Urban and Regional Research Center of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that "human harmony" is what Shanghai lacks most. "Shanghai needs a 'Renaissance'." Tu Qiyu gave an example. After Lee Hsien Loong became the Prime Minister of Singapore, he proposed that Singapore should not only be clean and beautiful, but also add X elements, that is, people will be inexplicably excited and have the urge to do things when they arrive there. , "This kind of feeling exists in Hainan, even in Beihai, Guangxi, but it has disappeared in Shanghai today." So, what else can you expect from this city?