Netizens have calculated and experts have backed a list claiming that it costs a total of 2.01 million RMB to raise a child in Guangzhou, Chinanews reports.

Beijing is the most expensive city in mainland China in which to raise a child where the cost is estimated at 2.76 million RMB. Shenzhen is in third place and Guangzhou is not far behind in fourth.

According to the list, the cost of feeding a child in Guangzhou (including while the mother is pregnant) is 20,000 RMB a year. The pregnancy, childbirth and rearing the child in infancy cost 7,000 RMB. Educating a child in the first six years of its life, including learning materials and pre-school tuition costs 780,000 yuan, while education from age 7 up to the end of college costs an estimated 1.2 million RMB.

Ou Jiangbo of the Guangzhou Institute of Social Sciences said the list is credible: “It’s expensive in Guangzhou, but commodity prices are still not as high as in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.”

Ou identified costs such as those of music lessons and language training centres as particularly problematic for middle-class families.

But the most talked about living cost of all is that of property. In Guangzhou, house prices went up this past month by 0.83% to 17,660 RMB per square metre.

In Shenzhen, the situation is even scarier with house prices up at 21,069 RMB per square metre. The cost of second-hand houses in Shenzhen has increased 17 months in a row.