The Bay Area is a notoriously expensive place to live — even for high-earning tech employees.
About 60% of tech workers can't afford homes in San Francisco, Business Insider previously reported. Now, there's another hair-raising stat to add to the list: 58% of tech workers said that the increased cost of living in the area has caused them to put off having kids, according to a survey by Blind, an app that lets (mostly tech) workers chat anonymously about the workplace.
The survey polled 8,284 people with most of the responses coming from employees who worked at 14 major tech companies. Nearly 70% of Apple employees said the area's high cost of living has led them to delay starting a family, the highest percentage of any company surveyed. More than 60% of employees working at Cisco, eBay, Uber, Google, and LinkedIn said the same.
About 50% to 59% of employees at Amazon, Intel, Lyft, Facebook, Booking.com, and Salesforce said they put off having kids due to cost of living. The only two companies where less than half of respondents said the same are Microsoft and Oracle — around 49% and 44%, respectively.
The average tech worker in the Bay Area earns $142,000 a year, according to a report by tech talent marketplace Hired. While a six-figure salary average is nothing to scoff at, in a land where the median price of a home is around $900,000 and in a world where the average cost to raise a child is more than $230,000, it may not be enough when it comes to growing a family.
Delaying having kids is a nationwide trend
But a delay in childbearing isn't specific to the Bay Area. Raising kids is more expensive than it's ever been, and finances are one of the top reasons why American millennials aren't having kids or are having fewer kids than they considered ideal, reported Business Insider's Shana Lebowitz, citing a survey by The New York Times published earlier this year.
The survey polled 1,858 men and women aged 20 to 45 — 64% said childcare is too expensive, 44% said they can't afford to have more children, and 43% said they waited to have kids because of financial instability (multiple answers were allowed).
According to Merrill Lynch's "The Financial Journey of Modern Parenting: Joy, Complexity, and Sacrifice" report, the percentage of parents who said their finances played a role in becoming a parent has increased by 40% since 1970, Business Insider previously reported.
Ultimately, having kids can cause family spending patterns and investment patterns to shift, according to the report. "Grocery and health expenses rise, money goes to children's toys, and childcare can suddenly be a major expenditure. Spending drops in categories around the parents' entertainment, including dining out, automobile expenses and vacations."
These costs only increase as children age, no matter where in the US you live.
