How Much Does Having Children Pay Off When You Get Older?
I know what you’re thinking and I agree, so let’s just get out of it: “Having someone to take care of you when you get old” is a terrible reason for having babies. But since you might be in the trenches nowadays, wiping the butt of someone who keeps calling you “Soft Mom” and wonders, “So when will all this parenting pay off again,” let’s look at some numbers, shall we?
As reported by Bloomberg , the RAND Center for the Study of Aging has actually quantified the value that children (especially daughters) bring to parents who will one day have to face the dire reality of being in a nursing home. It is important. Their research found that, in terms of cash costs, a non-parent would have to set aside an average of about $ 8,900 at age 57, compared to about $ 6,400 for a parent. Those with daughters are seeing their spending cut even further.
This is because Americans who need nursing home care tend to stay in institutions longer if they have no children – according to the data, non-parents stay there for an average of 279 days during their lifetime, up from 233. For for parents of four or more children, the average length of stay is reduced to 206 days. See the full diagram here . (Note that the averages are skewed by the extremely long stay of a small percentage of the population.)
“Having children does not affect the likelihood of being in a nursing home, but children tend to delay admission to a nursing home or help parents move more quickly from home,” explains Bloomberg’s Suzanne Woolley.
There is no guarantee for this financial benefit, if you can even call it that, given that raising a child costs $ 233,610 . Of course, it’s impossible to measure the love and joy that children bring in monetary terms, although I plan to show my child all receipts for her doll collection when I receive the nursing home bill.
How Much Are Your Children Worth | Bloomberg