Over 90% of guardians of students on scholarships after parental loss hard up: Japan poll

TOKYO — More than 90% of guardians of high school and university students who receive scholarships from a Tokyo-based foundation, which supports children who have lost at least one parent due to illness, disaster or other causes, said that their income does not cover the rising cost of living.

Some respondents to the survey conducted by the Ashinaga Foundation commented that with prices and utilities skyrocketing, the first thing they cut back on is food; at times they ate only one meal a day, and the child they are caring for lost 7 kilograms in weight. Bereaved children have always tended to suffer financially, but the high cost of living has made their lives even more difficult.

Over 70% earn less than $20,000 per year

From July 18 to 31, the foundation conducted an online survey of 5,179 guardians of high school and university students receiving its scholarships, and 3,107, or 60%, responded. Among the guardians who responded, 81.1% were “mothers.”

Of these households, 72.3% had incomes of less than 3 million yen (about $20,000) per year. Among households that said they were working, only 30.1% were full-time employees, while nearly 60% were non-regular employees, including part-timers (42.3%) and contract/temporary workers (16.9%).

Only 14.5% said their income “increased” compared to a year ago. More than 80% of respondents said their pay had not gone up, with 28.2% saying it has “decreased” and 57.3% saying it has “remained the same.”

On the other hand, 94.2% said that their income could not cover the rises in prices. Only 2.5% said that their earnings had increased enough to cover them.

Developing anemia, heatstroke due to cutting expenses

In response to high prices, what expenses are they cutting back on? The most common answer to this question was “food” at 52.8%, followed by “clothing/beauty” at 16.0% and “utilities/tap water” at 13.9%.

Respondents wrote a series of comments on their predicament in the free description area. A mother in her 40s living in Osaka Prefecture wrote, “Due to the rising cost of utilities, I started cutting back on my own meals last year, and I fainted with anemia. But I have no choice but to trim my food expenses.”

Another mother in her 50s living in Hokkaido said, “I tried not to turn on the air conditioner, and my second son and I suffered from heatstroke.” Among other cases, there was a guardian who had cancer but was unable to afford treatment and whose condition worsened.

A representative from the foundation pointed out that “some families are so trapped that their lives and health are being threatened,” and with the House of Representatives election approaching, they called for “policies to improve their situations.”

Over half of applicants failed to receive scholarships due to lack of funds

The number of applicants for the foundation’s scholarships for students entering high school has been increasing rapidly, reaching a record 3,487 in fiscal 2024 (as of Aug. 22), approximately 1.3 times the number for fiscal 2023. This is due in part to the fact that the foundation has been strengthening its support for high school students since fiscal 2023 and has decided to offer only “full scholarships” that do not require repayment, but the increase in applications has also been spurred by poverty caused by high prices.

In the current fiscal year, the foundation was unable to offer scholarships to 1,949 students, or 55.9% of all high school scholarship applicants, due to a shortage of funds.

The Ashinaga student fundraising association, organized by scholarship recipients, will hold street fundraising campaigns in each prefecture from Oct. 19 so that as many children as possible can receive scholarship funds. Detailed locations, dates and times can be found at the website of the association.

(Japanese original by Ei Okada, Digital News Group)