Japan: almost half of single parent families live in poverty

The results of a regular survey by the Ministry of Welfare on children living in families earning less than half the average income. The situation is closer to that in Brazil or South Africa than in the US or other G7 countries.

Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - In Japan, almost half of all single-parent families, i.e. those households in which children grow up with only one parent, live in poverty according to  a survey by the Japanese Ministry of Welfare on the living conditions of inhabitants in 2021, reported by the daily Asahi Shimbun.

This is a high figure: although it shows a drop of 3.8% compared to 2018, when 44.5% of these households were in poverty, it remains a long way from the 31.9% average of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development member states. 

Japan is ranked as the eighth country with the highest number of single parent households in poverty out of 43 nations. To give a global context to the situation in the Land of the Rising Sun, Brazil has the highest poverty rate for these families at 54.8%, followed by South Africa at 49.8%.

"Rising prices are putting parents' and children's lives at risk," said Yumiko Watanabe, head of the Tokyo-based non-profit organisation Kids' door, which provides free education to children from primary to secondary school assisted by social services.

Another Japanese third sector organisation, the NPO, conducted an online survey among the poverty-stricken households it assists. The result was that 90% of the contacted households were single parents with one or more dependent children. Of all respondents, 60 per cent said their expected income in 2023 will be around 2 million yen (about 13 thousand euro) and 40 per cent regularly spend 110 yen (0.64 euro), or less, per person on a meal.

In the free response section of the non-profit organisation's online survey, one respondent wrote: 'We had no choice but to lower the quality of our food. That is why my son was now found to be overweight during a school health check'.

Others wrote: 'There were days when when we were hungry, we drank a lot of water just to fill our stomachs', and again: 'I rely on school lunches for my son's meals, while I get by as best I can'.

Looking at the medium-term data, however, it should be noted that the child poverty rate in Japan has been steadily decreasing since 2015. The overall poverty level in the country was 15.4% in the 2021 survey, down 0.3 points from 2018, even though households with children account for only 18.3% of total households. Counting also one-person households, this is the lowest figure ever in Japan.

The Kishida government attributed the steady improvement to economic support measures introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic, along with an increase in overall income in Japan, driven by more women entering the workforce.

• Demographics