Children Costs in a One-Adult Household: Empirical Evidence from the UK.

Children Costs in a One-Adult Household: Empirical Evidence from the UK. | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Children Costs in a One-Adult Household: Empirical Evidence from the UK. Anderson VIL This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7603473/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 7 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This paper addresses two central questions in family and economic policy. First, to what extent are estimates of the cost of children derived from two-parent households applicable to single-parent families? Second, is the recently introduced “two-child limit” policy in the UK appropriate given the diversity of family structures? To address these questions, I propose a collective consumption model for one-adult households, apply it to three datasets—the Family Expenditure Survey, the Expenditures and Food Survey, and the Living Costs and Food Survey in the UK—and present two key findings. First, child cost estimates derived from two-parent households remain externally valid for single-parent families, at least for single mothers. Second, in low-income families, household size plays a crucial role in determining the proportion of resources allocated to children, a factor less relevant for higher-income families. This suggests that the “two-child limit” policy would likely exacerbate inequalities and increase child poverty within low-income families. JEL Classification: C30, D11, D12, D36, D63, I31, J12, J13 Collective Model Shadow price Economies of scale Identification Resource sharing Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files suppmaterialfile.zip Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 07 Dec, 2025 Reviews received at journal 02 Dec, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 05 Nov, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 05 Nov, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 17 Sep, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 17 Sep, 2025 First submitted to journal 12 Sep, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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