Childbirth costs: Family choices under efficiency

In 2024, China's total fertility rate will fall to 1.09, lower than Japan. This is not a warning from demographers, but a silent choice for every family when accounting. We are used to measuring work by efficiency, but we didn't expect that this logic has quietly invaded the bedroom, nursery and dining table.

Childbirth is no longer an emotional decision, but a carefully calculated return on investment analysis. The child's cost is broken down into lost time, money, and opportunities, and each item is marked with a price and optimized using Excel spreadsheets. The ultimate paradox of efficiencism is that the better we are at calculating, the easier it is to calculate results that are "not cost-effective".

1. Child's price tag

A survey by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences shows that the direct cost of raising a child until the age of 18 is 1.02 million yuan. If education and housing are included, this figure will soar to more than 2 million . That doesn't include the cost of parents 'time-1500 hours of companionship time per year, which is equivalent to 0.8 full-time jobs.

What is even more cruel is the opportunity cost. A 32-year-old woman working in Beijing told me: "Having a child means giving up year-end bonuses, promotion opportunities, and possibly even being transferred to a fringe project team. My colleague was replaced within six months after giving birth to a child." On her calculator, the "price" of a child is not 2 million yuan, but her career trajectory in the next 10 years.

The logic behind this algorithm is that family decision-making is being reshaped by the mindset of corporate management. In the past, having a child was a "natural" decision; now it has become a project that requires ROI (return on investment) analysis. Children are no longer part of the family, but a product line that requires "cost control."

2. How efficiencyism reshapes family decision-making

2.1 Monetization of time

Within the framework of efficiency, time is given a clear monetary value. A programmer working in Shenzhen gave me an account:

• His after-tax income per hour is 200 yuan.
• takes an average of 4 hours (queuing, waiting, round-trip) to take children to the hospital.
• This means that the "time cost" for each medical treatment is 800 yuan.
• If your child sees a doctor 6 times a year, the hidden cost is 4800 yuan.

"This doesn't include the mental cost," he added."Every time he takes time off to take his child to see a doctor, the boss will mention 'work is not focused enough' during the performance evaluation. This account cannot be calculated, but you can feel it."

The consequence of this algorithm is that families begin to "outsource" childcare like businesses do. Demand for childcare institutions, mothers-in-law, and domestic services has skyrocketed because they can turn childcare time into computable monetary costs. According to the "2023 China Family Service Industry Development Report", the number of childcare institutions has increased by 40% in the past three years, but prices have also increased by 60%. This means that only high-income families can afford "efficient childcare."

Optimization of ### 2.2 space

Efficiencyism not only affects time, but also reshapes space. In first-tier cities, the prices of housing in school districts have become ridiculously high. A financial practitioner working in Shanghai told me: "We couldn't afford a school district house, so we decided not to have children. Because there is no school district, children cannot go to good schools. If they cannot go to good schools, they cannot go to good universities. If they cannot go to good universities, they cannot find good jobs. Every link in this chain is a loss of efficiency."

School district houses are not houses, but guarantees of efficiency. It ensures that children can get the best quality educational resources in the shortest possible time and avoids wasting time in the competition for further studies. Under this logic, the child's growth path is simplified to an "optimal path", and any deviation is regarded as a loss of efficiency.

2.3 Quantification of emotions

The most counter-intuitive thing is that even emotions are incorporated into the efficiency framework. A psychological counselor working in Guangzhou told me that 30% of her clients are considering divorce or giving up having a second child because of "insufficient emotional rewards for the child."

"They will say,'The happiness that children give me is not as much as the sense of accomplishment that overtime brings.' "" The consultant explained,"In the context of efficiency, emotions are quantified as a 'unit of happiness.'" If the happiness brought by children is lower than work or consumption, they will feel that it is 'not cost-effective.'"

The extreme version of this logic is that children are seen as a consumer good, not a family member. If children don't bring enough emotional rewards, parents will "abandon" them like a return-through divorce, neglect, or even more extreme methods.

3. Counter-view: Is efficiencism really wrong?

Steelman: Proponents of efficiency will say that this algorithm makes family decisions more rational and avoids the social problems caused by blind childbearing. For example, although Japan's birthrate is serious, the distribution of social welfare and educational resources is more equitable. If every family can rationally calculate the cost of childbirth, the overall resource utilization efficiency of society will be higher.

They will also point out that efficiency is not the only reason for the low number of children. Factors such as urbanization, improved women's education levels, and changes in marriage concepts are equally important. Without efficiency, these factors would also lead to a decline in fertility.

But these views ignore a key issue: the ultimate goal of efficiencyism is to maximize output, and the essence of the family is emotional connection. When we measure families in terms of efficiency, we are actually "enterprising" the family. Children are no longer part of the family, but a project that needs to be "optimized." The consequence of this logic is that families become more and more like businesses, and businesses become more and more like families-employees are asked to "contribute like family members" and family members are asked to "be as efficient as employees."

The paradox of efficiency is that the more successful it is, the more fragile the family will be. Because the core of a family is not efficiency, but unconditional love and companionship. When we measure everything in terms of efficiency, we are effectively abandoning the essence of family.

4. Cross-border Analogy: Efficiencyism and Data Centers

The impact of efficiency in household decision-making is much like the issue of "cooling efficiency" in data centers. In data centers, the more efficient the cooling system is, the lower the operating costs of servers. However, when the cooling efficiency reaches the extreme, the server's operating environment will become too "clean", which can easily lead to hardware failures.

The same goes for families. When we over-pursue efficiency, the home's "operating environment" becomes too "clean"-no redundancy, no waste, and no surprises. But the essence of the family is redundancy and waste: the crying of children, the quarrels of couples, and the companionship of relatives are all "inefficient", but they constitute the temperature of the family.

The ultimate cost of efficiencyism is: the better we are at calculations, the easier it is to calculate "uneconomical" results. The essence of the family is those moments when it is "not cost-effective".

5. Scenarios Narration: Childcare Counselors Excel Sheets

Product manager of an Internet company

Li Ming is a 35-year-old product manager at an Internet company. He and his wife have been married for five years and have been hesitant about having children. In order to make "rational decisions," he spent three months creating an Excel sheet that detailed the costs and benefits of having a child.

On the left side of the table are costs:

• direct costs: milk powder, diapers, education, and medical care, totaling 1.8 million.
• time cost: 1500 hours of accompanying time per year, calculated based on his hourly salary of 300 yuan, totaling 450,000 yuan.
• Opportunity Cost: After giving birth to a child, he may miss two promotion opportunities, totaling 1 million yuan.

On the right side of the table are the gains:

• Emotional Benefit: The happiness brought by children cannot be quantified. Li Ming gave a subjective score of 80 points.
• Social Benefit: After having children, parents 'social circle will expand, scoring 60 points.
• Long-term Benefit: The child's possible future return, score 50 points (because the uncertainty is too high).

Finally, Li Ming came to a conclusion: The net cost of having a child is 2.25 million yuan, and the benefits cannot be quantified. This means that from an efficiency perspective, having children is "not cost-effective".

But Li Ming's wife disagreed with this conclusion. "Children are not projects," she said."You can't use Excel to figure out the value of a child."

Li Ming retorted,"If it's not clear, how do we know if it's the right decision?"

Behind this debate is the conflict between efficiencyism and the nature of the family. Li Ming tried to replace emotional decisions with rational calculations, but he ignored a key point: families are not businesses, and children are not products. When we measure families in terms of efficiency, we are giving up on the essence of families.

6. Conclusion: The Cost of Efficiencyism

Childbirth costs are not numbers, but the invasion of efficiency into family life. When we become accustomed to measuring work by efficiency, we will also unconsciously measure our family by efficiency. Children are no longer part of the family, but a project that needs to be "optimized." The consequence of this logic is that families become more and more like businesses, and businesses become more and more like families.

The ultimate paradox of efficiency is that the better we are at calculating, the easier it is to calculate results that are "not cost-effective". The essence of the family is those moments when it is "not cost-effective"-the child's first "father", the couple's hug, and the companionship of relatives. These moments cannot be quantified, but they make up the temperature of the home.

Golden sentence:

• "We used Excel to calculate the price of the child, but we couldn't calculate the value of the child."
• "The ultimate price of efficiencyism is: the better we are at calculations, the easier it is to calculate 'uncost-effective' results."

Motif response: This article explores the "cost of efficiency." Efficiencyism makes our work more efficient, but when it invades family life, we lose the essence of family-the emotions and companionship that cannot be quantified. Behind the cost of childbirth is the reshaping of family decision-making by efficiency and our abandonment of the essence of the family.