Parents count cost of ‘dear’ children

The report, from insurance specialist LV=, has revealed that one in five parents are delaying having more children because of child benefit cuts and the increasing cost – as parents spend 28 per cent of their annual household incomes on raising a child. The insurer also found single parents had been hardest hit by rising costs.

The cost of bringing up a child has reached £227,266, up from £222,458 last year, with the first year of a child’s life seeing the largest increase – almost doubling from £7,372 to £11,025.

The firm said education and childcare remained the biggest costs and almost 75 per cent of parents reported they had been forced to make cuts to meet the financial demands of raising their families.

With the cost of average childcare costing £405 a month across the UK, mothers said they personally need to earn an average of more than £26,000 a year to make it worthwhile returning to work.

Changes to Child Benefit in January 2013 have also affected many – with one mother in four reporting returning to work earlier than they wanted to.