Crippling cost of raising one child in China

Living in Suzhou in eastern Jiangsu province, Chen earns $730 (5,000 yuan) a month as a high school teacher, while her husband makes $2,500 (16,000 yuan) a month working for the sales department of an American company in neighboring Shanghai.

Raising their 2-year-old, Xiyan, swallows at least a third of the family’s annual income. Comparatively, in the US it costs a similarly positioned family a fifth of their income to raise a child.