There also are surveys pointing to a relationship between poverty and child abuse.

According to statistics compiled in June last year by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, of the 51 deaths resulting from child abuse reported in 2005, about 40 percent of the children were from households poor enough to be exempted from paying municipal taxes.

Statistics also indicate a connection between poverty and crime.

Hokkaido University Associate Prof. Mika Iwata, an expert on education and welfare, studied families whose children have been sent to reformatories using the results of surveys conducted by the government.

She found that about 20 percent to 30 percent of the families were poor.

There also are concerns about the effect of poverty on children's health.

At the end of February last year, the Yokohama social security promotion council obtained data from the Yokohama city government indicating about 3,700 children whose parents had failed to pay national health insurance premiums might have shied away from taking their children to hospital because of their inability to pay medical bills.

"Some children don't receive proper medical treatment because their parents are poor," a council member said.

Other disturbing data also has emerged.

In April 2006, Ryu Michinaka, a board director of the Health and Welfare Bureau of the Sakai city government in Osaka Prefecture, found that 25 percent of the heads of 390 randomly selected families on welfare benefits also were brought up in families receiving welfare benefits.

In the case of single-mother families, the figure was as high as 40 percent.

"The statistics indicate that poverty has become a fixed loop. We have to first break the poverty cycle. Measures to help such parents and children stand on their own are also needed," Michinaka said.

What should the government do?

Michiko Miyamoto, a sociology professor at the Open University of Japan, said the government should first grasp the situation of children living in poverty.

To this end, organizations related to medical services, welfare, education and employment that have information on such children should set up an information-sharing system, the professor said.

In addition to raising minimum wages to increase working parents' incomes, assistance to single-parent families, which are more likely to have difficulties making ends meet, should be increased, according to Miyamoto.

"Furthermore, measures to cut tuition fees and improve the arrangements for scholarships for such children should also be increased," she said.

Aya Abe, senior researcher in the Department of International Research and Cooperation of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, said in Japan, grants in cash and tax deductions for low-income people are insufficient.

"On the other hand, because the burden of taxes and social insurance premiums are heavy for poor families, welfare benefits and child allowances can't lift recipients out of poverty," she said.

To solve the problem, financial resources should be secured, for instance by trimming spousal tax deductions, and reviewing the tax system with an eye to the situation of low-income earners, she said.

Abe also suggested that child allowances be increased and that income security should be improved.