In Argentina, over one million children are skipping meals each day because their families cannot afford food, according to a UNICEF report published Tuesday. The number of households who cannot make ends meet has risen significantly since 2022.

An April study of households with children found that 7% of children and teens, and 30% of adults, had to skip at least one meal a day because they couldn’t afford food.

The report showed that seven in 10 children were poor in April. Poverty was defined as either economic poverty or deprivation of basic needs such as education, social protection, or adequate housing.

In a context of growing economic and social inequality, 52% of households with kids stopped buying essential foods because they could no longer afford them. This is 11 percentage points higher than in June 2023, and the highest since UNICEF started conducting these surveys in 2020. This number represents 3.3 million households, which are home to almost 7 million children.

According to UNICEF’s data, 90% of these homes stopped buying milk, meat and other similar products. “The intake of foods crucial for the nutrition of children and teenagers (meat, vegetables, fruit and dairy) has significantly dropped, while it has increased in the case of cheaper and less nutritious foods (pasta, flour and bread),” the report read.

In 48% of the homes surveyed, the monthly income wasn’t sufficient to cover basic household expenses. This was seven points higher than last year, and 15 points higher than in June 2022.

The situation gets worse when the head of the household is unemployed, on welfare, or a woman.

Almost a quarter (23%) of families also stopped buying medicine, while 32% stopped going for medical or dental checkups. Many had to borrow money or spend their savings to cover basic expenses.

In the 12 months prior to the survey, a quarter of teenagers had jobs, UNICEF found. A further 12% were looking for work.

UNICEF’s numbers are in line with recent studies on poverty in Argentina. An analysis of official data by the Argentine Catholic University’s Social Debt Observatory released last week showed that seven out of 10 children were poor in the first quarter of 2024. Poverty hit 55% and destitution rose to 20% in the first three months of the year, the observatory found.