Analysis of Out-migration from a Mountain Village: A Case Study of Kamitsue-mura in Oita Prefecture, Japan

Abstract

This paper proposes a scheme for study of migration which contains three factors, i.e. migrants, areas of origin and destination, and migration flows. Then it discusses characteristics of out-migration from an underdeveloped mountain village.Many mountain villages in Japan have experienced drastic depopulation by out-migration flows after W. W. II, especially since 1955. The starting point of this migration corresponds with that of high economic growth in postwar Japan. As a matter of course, social and economic characteristics of the mountainous areas have undergone rapid changes. The out-migration flows from the areas have been, therefore, one of the main causes of regional transformation by depopulation. But these out-migration flows themselves have hardly been treated in the studies on depopulation or underpopulation by researchers.In this study, the author adopts two points of view: that of 1) social geography, and of 2) population geography. The first one stresses characteristics of migrants, especially age, sex, and so on. And the second one overviews the whole character of out-migration flows from an area. These viewpoints are finally integrated to investigate spatial and temporal patterns of movements by many migrants.The study area, Kamitsue-mura, is a mountain village which is located in Oita Prefecture, and has experienced drastic depopulation in the past 25 years.In this study, data of individual out-migrants, whose names were struck off a resident registration list, were analyzed and then a further tracing survey was carrsed out.The following results were obtained:1. According to the data, the number of out-migrants from the village reached a peak between 1965 and 1970. Increase and decrease of the number was fairly correlated with the trend of the rates of Japan's economic growth.2. Analysis on the age and the sex of the out-migrants made it clear that mobility among young people, especially those between 15 and 18 years, was remarkable. Generally, the age of a migrant is strongly connected with his life cycle, and family cycle. The life cycle is reflected in the migrant's opportunities to move, and the family cycle is represented in the alternative forms of migration, i. e. whether single movement or not.Surveying other characteristics of out-migrants, e. g. family membership, the author found that the order of children by age in a family was related to their mobility. And an out-migrant's distance of movement was governed by his place of legal residence.3. The out-migrant's distance of movement was generally short. But young people tended to migrate farther away from the village. On the other hand, in the case of collective family out-migration, the distance was greatly shortened.Spatial distribution patterns of out-migrants' new addresses were thought to offer some tendency. Here, new addresses of out-migrants were grouped into six types for the purpose of analyzing the characteristics of destination and their changes. As a result, it was clear that many people who migrated from this village tended to move into the regions where the number of laborers occupied in tertiary industry was lorge. But besides this, the more important thing was the fact that migration flows of many out-migrants were destined for agricultural regions. The directions of out-migrants movements have, however, gradually tended to concentrate in those regions where tertiary industry was prominent.4. Out-migration from the village indicated some characteristics peculiar to mountainous areas. For example, numbers of out-migrants holding the object of entering into a higher level school, changing occupation, or obtaining a license were notable in this village. In addition to this, it became clear that many out-migrants selected the secondary industry for their occupations.Leaving this village, some people traced “chains” of former migrants.