Among low-income households with children in their early teens, 34.7 percent have experienced difficulty buying food for financial reasons, a survey by a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization showed Monday.

With child poverty a problem in the country, the survey result suggests that many low-income earners are struggling even to ensure sufficient food for their children.

The nonprofit organization supporting children in poverty, Kids’ Door, conducted the survey in February 2017 on low-income households with junior high school children who go to free tutoring schools in Tokyo and Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. It collected responses from 207 students and 147 parents.

The average annual income of responding households stood at ¥3,049,000. Those with incomes of less than ¥2 million made up the largest group, at 30.6 percent, and single-parent families accounted for 63.2 percent.

Of the responding parents, 1.4 percent said they often had difficulty buying enough food due to a lack of money over the past year, 10.9 percent sometimes faced the same situation and 22.4 percent experienced such problems but infrequently. Respondents who had faced such difficulties made up 34.7 percent in total.