It’s expensive to raise a child in America. These countries have better benefits. : Planet Money : NPR

Raising a child in the United States is prohibitively expensive. The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world without federal paid parental leave; it offers virtually no public childcare (and private childcare is prohibitively expensive); and women’s wages drop when they become parents. (Men’s wages, by the way, tend to rise when they become fathers.)

But outside the United States, many countries are eager for children to be born domestically. The reason? Many countries face a demographic problem: a large number of aging workers, a shrinking number of working-age people paying taxes, and not enough newborns to become future workers and taxpayers. Some countries are investing heavily to address the problem, offering generous benefits to parents, even including cash for children.

So if the US makes it really hard to have a baby, but other countries are willing to pay for it… maybe you can see the opportunity here. Host Mary Childs is super frugal, and she’s pregnant. That’s why she’s traveling the world looking for benefits. Between Sweden, Singapore, South Korea, Estonia, and Canada, who’s going to offer the best deal for her pregnancy?

For more information on parental benefits and fertility rates:

Today’s show is hosted by Mary Childs. It’s produced by James Snead, edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and planned by Senna Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is the executive producer of Planet Money.

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