Mr. Speaker, Employment and Social Development Canada, ESDC, does not use a benchmark as there is currently no officially recognized benchmark for the minimum cost of raising a child in Canada. Most analytical approaches that examine the cost of raising children focus on direct or out-of-pocket costs.
A 2023 study from Statistics Canada examined pooled data from the survey of household spending, SHS, for the period of 2014-17 to provide Canada-level estimates on child expenditures that account for children aged 0 to 22 years who live at home. The results from this study indicated as follows. A two-parent, middle-income family with two children spends about $293,000, on average, from birth to age 17, an average of $17,235 per year, raising a child. Two-parent families with two children and an annual income of more than $135,790 spent on average $403,910 per child from birth to age 17. The same sized family making less than $83,013, by comparison, spent on average 52% less per child, or $238,190. One-parent families with two children and an annual average income of less than $83,013 spent on average $231,260 per child from birth to age 17, while those making $83,013 or more spent $372,110 per child. When adult children aged 18 to 22 living with their parent or parents are considered, the overall amount spent rises by almost one-third, or 29%, for both single- and two-parent families.