Over 16 percent of children in Japan were living below the poverty line in 2012, the highest level on record and 0.6 percentage point higher than was found by the previous survey in 2009, according to the welfare ministry.

Its national livelihood survey also found that 51.2 percent of elderly people requiring nursing care shared households with similarly aged caregivers — 65 or older — in 2013.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare attributed the record child poverty levels to "declines in incomes of households with children in the economy still experiencing deflation."