Household expenditures show us a good picture of their living conditions. We want to see what households spend their total wages on since it is the main source of income for most people. We can assume that child care can be more challenging for single parents who are mostly women (97 percent) or for families where primary caregivers are grandparents.
Has anyone ever wondered how much it costs to raise our children and who pays for it? First of all, let’s look at the marital status of households.
According to summary statistics from the Household Budget Survey, two-thirds of household heads were married in 2018. Also, 16.23 percent of heads of households were widowed and just over a tenth of heads of households had never been married. A small proportion of heads of households (6.24 percent) were divorced.
It is also interesting to look at the housing conditions of children in Kazakhstan. We identified several types of living arrangement for children under 18: living with both parents only; living with only one parent; living with both parents and grandparents (multigenerational family); living with grandparents as primary caregivers (no parents in the household); and other types of living arrangement. According to summary statistics, more than half of children live with both parents in a nuclear family. Slightly more than a quarter of children live in multigenerational families. At the same time, nearly 9 percent of children live with one parent, and 2.27 percent live with grandparents as the primary caregiver. The rest of the children live in other types of living arrangement.
In 2018, according to the 2018 Household Budget Survey, the average number of children in a Kazakh household is 1.97. Looking at the geographic difference in the number of children, Kyzylorda Oblast had the highest number of children per household with an average of 2.43 children. The lowest number of children was noted in Almaty city - 1.57 children on average. In general, it seems that people in the northeastern part of Kazakhstan have fewer children, while closer to the southern and western parts of the country the average number of children increases.
Household expenditures show us a good picture of their living conditions. We want to see what households spend their total wages on since it is the main source of income for most people. Single parents and multigenerational households spend the most (18 percent) of their income on food, while both parents spend the least (14 percent). Multigenerational households spend the most on nonfood items (37 percent), while both-parent households spend the least (28 percent). Both multigenerational and single-parent families tend to spend the same amount on personal services and transportation (9 percent and 5 percent, respectively) compared to dual-parent and other households. Health care appears to be a frequent spending item for multigenerational families (3 percent) compared to other families (2 percent). Families with both parents, single-parent families, and families with other forms of living arrangements spend more on education (4 percent) compared to multigenerational families (3 percent).
When we looked at households in which grandparents are the primary caregivers, we found that their spending exceeds their earned income, which is not surprising. This can be explained by the fact that grandparents may earn significantly less if they are employed, or they may depend entirely on other sources of income, such as pension payments or welfare transfers. So instead of looking at the share of labor income in grandparent households, we decided to look at the types of expenditures as a share of total expenditures. Households with grandparents as primary caregivers spend on categories such as food (20.3 percent), non-food items (36.4 percent), utilities (16.7 percent), communications (7.3 percent), education (2.11), health care (2.55 percent), personal services (9.59 percent) and transportation (5.1 percent). The largest category for households with grandparents as primary caregivers includes clothing, appliances and medications. One-fifth of annual expenses are spent on food. We must emphasize the importance of social transfers for grandparents who care for children.
We selected from the data set expenses related to children under the age of 18. It included expenditures related primarily to education, personal services (babysitting, extracurricular activities), and transportation. We decided to look at the average annual expenditure as a share of earned income for households that reported spending. Preschool (daycare) has the biggest share of annual earned income across all types of living arrangements. Single-parent households spend 6.67 percent of annual earned income on preschool which is the biggest share spent compared to other forms of housing. At the same time, households with grandparents as the primary caregiver spend 5.12 percent of annual earned income on kindergarten. Multigenerational households reported spending 2.67 percent of their annual earned income on daycare.
Households with both parents tend to spend 2.76 percent of their annual earned income on kindergarten. Expenses related to daycare put a strain on the budgets of single parents and grandparents since single-parent households have one breadwinner and grandparents who primarily care after children depend on other sources of income instead of earned income. A similar picture is observed concerning spending on developmental centers. For many childcare-related expenditures, households with both parents might have less share because these kinds of households have higher chances of having dual earners. Nanny services, baby food, music lessons and extracurricular activities take up a bigger share of earned income for single parents compared to both parents.
To sum up, we can assume that child care can be more challenging for single parents who are mostly women (97 percent) or for families where primary caregivers are grandparents.
This publication was prepared within the framework of the Gender Economics Research Center project with the financial support of the Soros Foundation Kazakhstan. The contents of this publication reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SFK.