子供手当ては半額支給であとは現物支給となりそうだ。私はバラマキには反対で、保育施設の充実など、親が頑張るのを国が助ける方向にすべきだと思っている。ところで、子供手当ては少子化の主要な理由が子供を育てるのにお金がかかることにあるとして行われている政策である。子供に必要な支出は塾や大学生の授業料、都会でのアパート代などの教育費が大きい。現に子供手当ての使途についてのアンケート調査によると、塾に行かせる費用や子供の将来に備えての貯蓄が多い。それならば、学校教育を充実して塾に行く必要性をなくす、大学への補助金を増やして、寮を完備するなどの施策の方がよいのではないだろうか。外国でのこのへんの事情はあまり知らないが、欧米で、塾に行く子が多いとは聞いたことがない、また大学には寮があり、そもそも大学が田舎にあって、アパート代は安いとも聞く。日本では教育費を減らすこうした施策は話題にもならないのはどうしてだろう。
It is likely that child benefit will be reduced to the half of the promised amount of 26,000 yen and the budget equivalent to the other half will be allocated to various expenses at school and to the installation of necessary facilities for children. I am against cash handout policies and think it is better for the government to encourage and help people to earn their livings by themselves. The child benefit was intended to help parents financially, because the main reason for the decreasing number of children is considered to be the financial burden of child rearing. For many families the biggest financial burden is expenses for the education of children such as cram school fee, college tuition and accomodation fee in a big city for college kids. In fact responding to the question such as how to use the child benefit, many parents say that they will spend it on sending their children to cram schools and/or save for the future expense for them. Then it is better to improve school education so that children do not need to go to cram schools and increase the subsidy to colleges including the construction cost for more dormitories. I hear that in the US and European countries not many children go to cram schools and universities have enough dormitories or many of them are in the countryside so that the apartment rent is not expensive. In Japan people do not seem to be much interested in such policies as reducing the education cost.
