Study:

The cost of raising a child: Equivalence scales in the United States - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517652... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112359

Abstract:

As fertility rates drop to another historical low, understanding the economic burden of child-rearing on household income, a main economic reason for falling birth rate, has become more crucial than ever. This study calculates a subjective equivalence scale explaining how much the income of a two-adult, one-child household should increase to maintain the same level of life satisfaction as a two-adult household, using a nationally representative U.S. sample. The results suggest that the equivalence scale for a two-adult, one-child household is 1.18, indicating that raising a child costs 18 % of a two-adult household’s income. Our analysis indicates that programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) may be overly generous for households with one child, while the tax deduction policy does not cover child-rearing costs sufficiently.

The higher healthcare costs go, the more having a kid is like playing a reverse-lottery, but with way higher odds of "winning" than the real lottery. A kid with major chronic health problems means even those otherwise doing financially OK will be fucked, permanently. That's it, the whole rest of your life just got a ton harder and worse. You've gotta have a lot of money before that stops being a serious concern.

It's also the case that kids tend to eat disposable income up to a pretty high level, with spending that's not strictly necessary but is damn hard not to do if you can afford it. How many parents with the money to choose between living in a good school district and a cheaper, so-so one, pick the so-so one? It's gotta be very few of them. This scales all the way up to: how many parents who can afford $100,000+/yr to send two kids to prestigious boarding prep schools, don't? These things radically change the probability tables for your kids' entire lives for the better, and it's damn hard not to spend that money if you can do it. Then you wonder with every little bump and hurdle if you're harming your kid by being tight with money. This extends to things like daycare choices, healthcare choices (let the nasty cut leave a big scar, or spend a few hundred dollars at urgent care for stitches...), all kinds of stuff.