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孩子18岁以后抚养成本更高

　　Parents and would-be parents might be relieved to hear that last week's widely reported government figure estimating the cost of raising a child - around $300,000 over the first 17 years for middle-income, two-parent families - is, according to several economists, wide of the mark。

　　上月中旬，美国农业部(U.S. Department of Agriculture)公布了抚养一个孩子的估计成本──中等收入双亲家庭抚养子女到18岁的成本约为300,000美元，然而据多位经济学家称，这一广泛报道的政府数据错得离谱，父母们和即将成为父母的人听到这里或许会感到松了一口气。

　　The bad news is it may be a severe underestimate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's report leaves two things out of account. For a start, it doesn't reflect unpaid time spent on parenting, including income forgone by parents who cut back on work hours to care for their children。

　　坏消息是，这个数字其实是可能严重低估了。美国农业部的报道没有计入两个项目。首先，它没有反映出抚养孩子所花的无报酬时间，包括减少工作时间以照顾子女的父母放弃的收入。

　　Plus, the hit to parents' wallets doesn't end when the child turns 18, as the parents often still provide housing and food as well as pay for college. These could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional costs。

　　而且，当子女到18岁以后，父母的荷包还要继续出血，因为父母经常仍要为他们提供食宿和支付大学学费。这些费用会增加数十万美元的成本。

　　"The real costs of raising a child for a moderate-income family" - including forgone income, college for those who attend, and the so-called opportunity cost of not investing the money - "would be closer to $900,000 to age 22 than the reported $300,000 expenditures to age 18," says John Ward, an economist and the president of John Ward Economics, based in Prairie Village, Kan., which consults on legal disputes for plaintiffs and defendants。

　　堪萨斯州普莱瑞村(Prairie Village)的John Ward Economics公司的总裁、经济学家约翰 沃德(John Ward)说，"中等收入家庭抚养一个子女的实际成本"──包括放弃的收入、大学学费、以及没有将这些钱进行投资而导致的所谓的机会成本──"到子女22岁时将接近900,000美元，而不是媒体报道的抚养到子女18岁时的300,000美元。"John Ward Economics为原告和被告的法律纠纷提供咨询服务。

　　(The $300,000 estimate takes into account expected inflation. In 2011 dollars, the price tag for a middle income family is $234,900.)

　　(300,000美元的估计考虑了预期通货膨胀。按照2011年的货币购买力，中等收入家庭养育一个子女的估计成本为234,900美元。)

　　USDA economist Mark Lino, chief author of the annual study, acknowledges the report excludes college and forgone income. These expenses and others after a child turns 18, he says, typically aren't included in calculating state guidelines for child-support and foster-care payments - a principal use of the report。

　　美国农业部的经济学家、该项年度研究的主要作者马克 利诺(Mark Lino)承认，该报告没有考虑大学学费和父母放弃的收入。该报告的主要用途是为美国州政府处理子女抚养费用相关问题时提供指引，利诺说，这些费用和子女18岁以后的其他费用在州政府制定相关指导方针时通常不包括在内。

　　"We have traditionally only looked at direct, out-of-pocket expenditures," he says。

　　他说，"我们传统上只考察直接的、现付的支出。"

　　The USDA numbers represent how much parents spend on their children, and not necessarily how much they should spend, which Dr. Lino says would be "very subjective." His staff derives its spending data from the federal Consumer Expenditure Survey, produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, assigning child expenses in various categories to households including children。

　　美国农业部的数字表示父母对子女的支出金额，而不一定是他们应该支出的金额，利诺博士称后者是"非常主观的。"他手下的研究人员根据美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)编写的联邦《消费者支出调查》(Consumer Expenditure Survey)得出这一支出数据，计算出有子女家庭的各类子女抚养费用。

　　Since the first USDA report, in 1960, the data and approach have evolved. As the nation's farming population has declined, the report no longer breaks out spending on farms, though it includes separate estimates for rural areas and urban areas in different parts of the country。

　　自从1960年美国农业部第一份此类报告出台以来，相关数据和统计方法一直在演变。当美国的农业人口下降时，该报告不再单列农场家庭的支出，但它仍包括对全国不同区域的农村地区和城市地区的分别估计。

　　In 2008, Dr. Lino's staff made two broader shifts that pulled the estimate in different directions. Pushing the figure higher, the USDA began including in its estimate of child-care and education costs only households that bore such costs. Previously, it averaged in households without direct expenses for child care and education as zeros. The change led to an increase in the cost estimate of 33% for the category。

　　2008年，利诺博士手下的研究人员作出两项主要变化，推动估计数字向不同方向变动。令数字升高的是，美国农业部开始在子女照顾与教育成本的估计数据中只计入承担此类成本的家庭。之前在计算平均值时，将没有子女照顾与教育直接费用的家庭计为零。这一变化导致此类家庭的估计成本提高了33%。

　　A change in calculating housing expenses had the opposite effect. Before 2008, each child was assigned the same share of housing costs as any other member of the household. Since then, the cost per child has been set at the marginal cost of an additional bedroom, lowering the housing cost by between 22% and 45%， depending on the region。

　　住房费用计算方法的变化影响则与之相反。2008年以前，对每个子女和任何其他家庭成员赋予的住房成本份额相同。从那以后，每个子女的住房成本被定为增加一间卧室的边际成本，根据地区的不同，房屋成本的降低幅度在22%至45%之间。

　　The education cost would be far higher if college were included, even accounting for children who don't attend college, pay for it themselves or attend low-priced institutions. Several economists, including Jane Venohr, a research associate at the Denver-based Center for Policy Research think tank who studies child support, say the USDA's approach, by cutting off at age 18, is consistent with most states' child-support guidelines. She adds, however, that guideline details vary widely across the country, and that most states don't base their guidelines entirely on the USDA estimate。

　　如果加上大学学费，教育成本将高得多，即使算上没有上大学的子女，以及自己支付学费或上低学费大学的子女。多位经济学家──包括位于丹佛(Denver)的政策研究中心(Center for Policy Research)智库的研究助理、研究子女抚养问题的简 费诺尔(Jane Venohr)──都称，美国农业部以18岁为界的方法与多数州的子女抚养指导方针一致。然而，她还说，不同地区的指导方针详情差异很大，多数州的指导方针并非完全基于美国农业部的估算。

　　Lonnie Berger, associate professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says post-18 expenditures matter in adding up all costs to parents. Given the prolonged dependency of many adult children in the current economy, "ideally, such an accounting would extend at least through the early to mid 30s," Prof. Berger says。

　　威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校(University of Wisconsin, Madison)的社会工作学副教授朗尼 伯杰(Lonnie Berger)说，加总父母全部支出时，18岁以上子女的支出很重要。伯杰教授说，鉴于目前经济中许多成年子女的依赖期延长，"理论上，这种计算至少应延长至子女30岁出头时。

　　" Nancy Folbre, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, argued in her 2008 book "Valuing Children' that forgone wages should be included in the cost of raising children. She found that parents' time cost is larger, on average, than direct spending, at least until children reach age 12. The best explanation of why time cost hasn't been included, she says, is that 'we still don't have the data we need to provide really accurate estimates."

　　马萨诸塞大学阿姆赫斯特分校(University of Massachusetts, Amherst)的经济学家南希 福尔布雷(Nancy Folbre)在她2008年出版的著作《孩子的价值》(Valuing Children)中称，父母放弃的工资应包括在抚养子女的成本中。她发现，平均而言，父母的时间成本高于直接支出，至少直到子女12岁以前是如此。她说，对没有计入时间成本的最好解释是，"我们仍缺少提供真正准确的估计所需的数据。

　　" Even the federal American Time Use Survey, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, doesn't directly measure how much time all adults in a household are spending caring for their children。

　　即使是劳工统计局的《美国人时间使用调查》(American Time Use Survey)也没有直接衡量出家庭中所有成人照顾子女所花的时间。

　　Lest this all sound like a dismal accounting of child-rearing by the dismal science, Prof. Berger says the cost approach excludes the many benefits of having children, not all of them quantifiable, such as happiness and personal satisfaction. Cost estimates such as the USDA's exclude "any intrinsic benefit that parents realize from child rearing, which would be extremely difficult to monetize," Prof. Berger says。

　　为了避免这听上去像"悲观科学"对抚养子女作出的悲观计算，伯杰教授说，成本方法并没有包括拥有子女的许多收益，并非所有收益都是可以量化的，例如快乐与个人满足感。伯杰教授说，诸如美国农业部报告这样的成本估计都没有包括"父母从抚养子女中获得的内在收益，这可能极难货币化。

　　It should be remembered that parents may also get tangible returns from their adult children in time, such as financial resources and caregiving, Prof. Berger adds。

　　伯杰教授说，应该记住，父母最终还能从成年子女那里获得了有形回报，例如金钱资源和看护。