Distribution of Agricultural Labor Productivity in Japan and Its Change, 1960-1975

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The purpose of this study is to present the mesoscale distribution of agricultural labor productivity (A. L. P.) in Japan and its change during the period from 1960 to 1975 and to analyze statistically the relationship between A. L. P. and several factors.A. L. P. is defined as gross agricultural income (ten thousands yen per farm operator mainly engaged in farming). The data sources for this study are the Census of Agriculture in Japan and the Agricultural Income Statistics of Japan. For this study Japan was divided into 305 divisions through agglomerating several municipalities into one statistical unit.The first step of the analysis was the preparation of maps of A. L. P. in 1960, 1965, 1970, and 1975. Then the change of areal distributions of A. L. P. were investigated by comparing these series of maps.Subsequently, the polynominal trend surface analysis was applied for analyzing the general distribution pattern and the change from 1960 to 1975. In addition, multiple regression analysis was used to clarify the relationship between A. L. P. and the main factors.Main results obtained are as follows:1. A. L. P., even if the increase due to inflation of the agricultural price was eliminated, has increased 3.5 times in 1975 compared to 1960. Regional variation of A. L. P. decreased temporary in 1965, but has expanded continuously until 1975. A. L. P. goes in the opposite direction to agricultural land productivity.2. The examination in the types of change of A. L. P. showed that the number of districts remaining in the same class between the census have decreased except for the areas with very high score and very low score. Recently there is general tendency for a gradual increase of the inter-class movement (Fig. 2).3. 1st order trend surface of A. L. P. shows the general distribution pattern which is high in the northeastern parts in Japan, and low in the southwestern Japan from 1960 to 1970. Since 1970, it is high in the north and low in the southern parts of Japan (Fig. 4-7). If we raise the level of generalization of these patterns, we can see the appearance of the tendency for lower A. L. P. in the region facing the Pacific Ocean. The region centered around Tokyo, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka prefecture shows a remarkable decrease of A. L. P. On the other hand, the zone from Hokuriku district to Osaka shows a considerable increase.4. Multiple regression formula developed in this study, contained six variables, i. e., climate, agricultural labor input, management units, level of agricultural technology, level of commercialization, and quality of agricultural labor force as independent variables (Table 3). Using standardized partial regression coefficients, level of commercialization had the largest contributions in 1960, 1965, and 1970, and quality of agricultural labor force was the second. In 1975, the agricultural labor input was the most important, and the level of commercialization ranked next (Table 5). The inspection of the time change of the standardized partial regression coefficients for the three factors during the study period shows that the largest contributions of both the level of commercialization and the quality of agricultural labor force decreased and that of agricultural labor input is increased. These multiple regression formula containing these variables can explain considerable parts of the total three variance in agricultural labor productivity in the each census year.