Quantifying the Value of Motherhood

The value of fostering children has been long undervalued in western governments. I attribute this to many factors including short time preference. A child is a long term investment and it take upfront pain and sacrifice. To me it's clear that it is valueble without analysis, but I want to do the math so the math people can understand, it's more than a feeling.

For this we assume that the society has balanced books, that the average person is productive for 50 years and that 30% of their production is surplus to their own requirements for sustenance. You could also construe this 30% as tax intake as it is also about the average tax rate. The added value of the child is represented as that child whole life and it is not just for the parents, or for the family name, but for the whole of society.

Motherhood

Per child calculations.

Average wage x 50 x 30% = Ave.Wage x 15 

We use the average income and not the median income because the child has an even chance of being average. With good parenting, from stay at home parents, you would hope they would be better, but lets ignore that from this calc. In New Zealand the average wage is around $69k and in Australia it is $102k. 

102kAUD x 50 x 0.3 = 1,530kAUD = 1.5 million AUD

For a mother of 3 that is $4.5 million dollars!

The value of children can be projected out far into the future. Those children themselves have children and if they can all do this at higher than replacement rate, eg; having 3 children and whilst still on average maintaining 50 average working years, then the calculation can be projected out. If we project this out over 100 years with average generation interval of 25 years, ie;  the average child is birthed when the mother is 25, then the calculation for a mother of 3 is higher. 3 children, 9 grandchildren, 27 great grandchildren and 81 great great grandchildren.

$1.5 million x (3 + 9 + 27 + 81) = 1.5 million x 120 = $180 million

Wowowoh! Yes! it is so high the power of compounding numbers. If we project it out forever then the value will go to infinity! 

We should note that doing this, providing this value is relies on more than just creating the child, it also requires an intergenerational effort to sustain these conditions. So now we have established the huge potential financial impact, lets bring it back down to earth and attribute the funds directly to how we spend our time.

The stay at home mum.

So if we consider that the years taken off work to raise the children are a valuable part of sustaining the intergenerational conditions. If we say that it takes 5 years per child to bring them up well enough to meet our conditions and that the rest of the upbringing is excluded, because during that time the parent can also be working without compromising the intergenerational culture then here are the calculations.

Per year calculations.

Staying with the 1.5 million per child (life time) number

1.5 million / 5 = $300,000 per year per child

Using the 121 million per child number attributing the value generated for the century. 

121 million / 15 years =  $8,066,000 per year per child

Yes thats crazy, it's disregarding the child raising time of the children. in this we should include the time of the children and grandchildren taken to raise their kids. This will assume that the whole family ends at the end of the century and that all work has been completed. The total years spent in the century raise the children of this averagely productive growing family.

3 x 5 + 9 x 5 + 27 x 5 + 81 x 5 = 120 x 5 = 600 years

$180 million / 600 = $3 million per year