Many children raised by their grandparents said their family faces financial difficulties and they often experience feelings of abandonment, according to the results of a survey released Thursday. The survey was conducted by the non-profit Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF) to gauge the living conditions of the increasing number of Taiwanese children being raised by their grandparents instead of their parents. According to a government estimate, Taiwan now has more than 90,000 households whose breadwinners are grandparents. The survey found that 14 percent of the respondents said their families did not have fixed or regular income, which was 2.2 times that of those among normal families. Most of the respondents' grandparents made a living scavenging because their age and stamina limited their job opportunities. Against this backdrop, 56 percent of the respondents said they often worry about their family's financial status. Meanwhile, 30 percent said they do not like their living quarters because the houses were shabby, crowded, dirty, chaotic or had leaking roofs; and 32 percent said they could seldom pay school fees or tuition on time. Up to 50 percent of the children surveyed said they feel that they are lagging behind their peers or classmates in their academic studies and need additional after-school tutoring; 52 percent said nobody could help them with their homework. Only 30 percent said they can afford to attend afterschool talent classes or cram schools. Meanwhile, 40 percent of the children who responded to the survey also said they often feel abandoned and lonely. The survey also showed that 39 percent of the children had once slept or stayed up overnight alone; 1 percent said they often or consistently take care of their own daily life by themselves; and 70 percent said they have never or only occasionally discussed things with grown-ups in their family. CWLF executives said the campus life or relationship of children raised by their grandparents is worrisome as 50 percent of the respondents said they had been bullied by their classmates over the past two months and 5 percent said they were harassed by classmates every school day. With the approach of summer vacation, the CWLF launched a campaign Thursday to raise funds to help school children raised by their grandparents attend talent classes or after-school classes during summer break. The foundation began the survey late last year, targeting mainly fourth-to-sixth grade students from families with their grandparents as key breadwinners. A total of 4,487 valid samples were collected. The survey results had a 99 percent confidence level and a margin of error of less than 2 percent. 