Total costs to raise a child in Japan increase when they start junior high school or high school, a study by the National Center for Child Health and Development showed.

The total cost to raise a child was ¥16.32 million ($106,740) through junior high school graduation and ¥21.72 million through high school, according to the survey, which covered more than 4,100 mothers across the country whose first child was 18 or younger in November.

Compared with the findings of a survey on child-raising costs until graduating junior high school, conducted by the Cabinet Office in 2009, the costs went up by about ¥200,000, mainly due to increases in living costs.

The latest survey showed that yearly costs increased with the child's age. Living costs, such as those for food and clothing, accounted for more than half of the total at every age.

Broken down by age, the costs totaled some ¥800,000 per year for a child 6 or younger, ¥1 million for elementary school students, ¥1.4 million for junior high school students and ¥1.8 million for high school students.

Kenji Takehara, head of the center's Department of Health Policy, said there is a lack of data that could provide the basis for assessing the financial support needed for child-rearing households.

"Support should be based on data," he said.