I was born in the northeast countryside, then went to Nanning, Guangxi to study in university, and now I work in Harbin. The experience of these years has made me find that the cost of giving birth and raising children in rural areas in Northeast China is relatively low.
In the northeast countryside, you don't have to go to the hospital to give birth. Just ask the midwife at home. After the child leaves, breastfeeding is ok, and there is no need to do several physical examinations during pregnancy. But when you are in Harbin, you must go to the hospital to have a baby. If there are no beds in public hospitals, go to private hospitals. After giving birth, you should feed less breast milk and more imported milk powder. During pregnancy, follow the doctor's advice and do more pregnancy tests. Just being pregnant and having children may be able to settle down in the northeast countryside, but it is likely to cost tens of thousands in Harbin.
Now in the rural areas of Northeast China, mechanization is quite developed, and the days of busy farming are getting less and less. Many ordinary farmers usually farm land and raise some poultry and livestock. In this case, parents in rural areas in Northeast China can take care of their children by themselves. In Harbin, it's different. If parents want to take care of their children by themselves, at least one of them should stop working for several years. Although the salary in Harbin is not high, how can they lose 200 thousand or 300 thousand if they don't work for five or six years? If both parents have to work, you have to hire a nanny to take care of the children, right? In five or six years, it will cost about 200 thousand, right?
Children who grow up in rural areas generally don't go to kindergarten like children in cities, attend this interest class like children in cities, and don't have to go here and there on weekends like children in cities. In this way, a lot of money is saved.
This is just counting the children to five or six years old. In fact, as children grow up, you will find that raising children in rural areas is far more economical than in cities. Therefore, the money spent on raising a child in the city is likely to enable rural couples to raise four or five children.
Of course, some people will say that the income of rural people is lower than that of urban people and cannot be simply converted from money. However, even if the income gap is eliminated, it is quite difficult for urban working-class people to raise 1 child and rural poor people to raise three children.
What are the benefits of having more children for a family? There are many benefits:
Give birth to a boy, one more profitable labor force.
Having a girl when you get married is not a small income.
If one of so many children succeeds, the whole family will follow suit.
Especially this last point is very important for a family. Those families with only one child will fail to invest if they can't guarantee the success of 100%, but for those families with many children, as long as there is one success, they will earn it.
So you see, having more children is the best way to fight poverty.