The ₹55 Lakh Question: Is Raising a Child in Urban India Becoming a Luxury?
The ₹55 Lakh Question: Is Raising a Child in Urban India Becoming a Luxury?
How expensive is it really to raise a child in India’s cities today? One viral LinkedIn post has brought this uncomfortable question into the spotlight, sparking intense online conversations about parenting, social pressures, and the middle-class squeeze.
Akur Jhaveri, an Associate Vice President at IDfy, recently took to LinkedIn to share a personal revelation that’s now making waves across social media. What began as a casual conversation with his cousin—who teaches at an international school—turned into a financial eye-opener, forcing him to rethink the real price of parenting in metropolitan India.
“I never realised the real cost of raising kids in India, until I met my cousin last week,” Jhaveri wrote candidly.
What followed was a breakdown that felt more like a corporate budget sheet than a family expense list.
The Real Math Behind Modern Parenting
According to Jhaveri’s “back-of-the-envelope” calculation:
International school tuition fees alone cost around ₹7–9 lakh annually.
Add another ₹2–4 lakh for books, uniforms, private tuition, and other academic costs.
That brings the total educational cost to approximately ₹12 lakh a year.
Now toss in extracurricular activities, birthday parties, coaching, clothing, and leisure expenses, which can easily hit another ₹1 lakh annually.
Total estimated annual expense per child: ₹13 lakh.
And that’s just one child.
Here’s where things get more sobering.
Jhaveri calculates that if a parent allocates roughly 30% of their net income to cover their child’s expenses, they’d need to earn ₹43–44 lakh after tax to sustain this lifestyle.
But with taxes factored in (assuming a blended income tax rate of 20%), the required gross salary jumps to ₹55–60 lakh per year.
“To send your kids to a good school, an Indian needs to have a gross salary in the range of ₹50–60 lakhs,” Jhaveri explained. “And this is if you have ONE kid. Have another one, and these numbers increase substantially.”
He ends that part of the post with a wry observation: “I always used to wonder why people these days don’t want to have kids. Now I know why…”
In a follow-up note, Jhaveri addressed the obvious counterpoint—why not just opt for more affordable schools?
He wrote that while ICSE or CBSE schools may charge significantly less, there are two key challenges:
1. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) among urban parents drives them toward high-end international education, hoping to give their kids a competitive edge.
2. The best ICSE schools are notoriously hard to get into. “Getting admitted to them is not a walk in the park,” said Jhaveri, who himself is a product of the ICSE system.
The post quickly went viral, attracting a flood of reactions—many in support, others critical.
Some users shared cost-effective alternatives. “Good CBSE schools in Delhi only charge ₹10K a month and deliver excellent academic results,” one parent noted.
Others called out the flawed logic of equating expensive schools with quality education. “If you’re paying ₹13 lakh a year and still hiring private tutors, then what’s the school doing?” a commenter questioned.
Then there were more pointed critiques: “The schools you mention cater to the super-elite. The post smells like attention-seeking, not real-world analysis.”
However, many parents could relate, especially to the unspoken pressures that push families into stretching their finances.
One user summed it up poignantly: “The real problem isn’t just the cost—it’s the FOMO. We’re not only burning out as parents, we’re passing the pressure onto our kids.”
Is Quality Education Now a Luxury?
Akur Jhaveri’s post may be based on rough calculations, but its emotional and financial truth has struck a chord. In a world where parenting choices are increasingly shaped by status, competition, and social media-fueled aspirations, his post has exposed the widening gap between aspiration and affordability.
As one user put it: “Good education is a luxury.” Maybe that’s the real wake-up call.
