The Industrial Structure, Past and Present of Kôtzushima Isle, Izu

Abstract

The Izu Islands comprise nine inhabited islands ranging from Izuôshima to Aogashima. Geologically volcanic with the sea-eroded bluffs generally unfavorable for port facilities, each of these islands has long remained a typical specimen of isolated existence. With the recent consolidation of airport and port facilities, however, the features of these islands have been rapidly undergoing substantial changes, supported by their advantage of location not far distant from the metropolitan province.Regional transformation incidental to the change in traffic conditions is conceived to appear most conspicuously in hitherto forlorn isolated islands. On such islands, even without quantitative analysis, it is certainly of deep interest to trace how, as a way of changing the self-supporting nature of the traditional economy, specific production and tourist industries have been introduced and developed in harmony with their old industries. The present study was designed to scrutinize the changes, mainly in its industrial structure, of an isolated island with the peculiarity of a regionally segregated existence. For this purpose, out of the nine islands, Kôzushima Isle, which is regarded as typical of the modernizing Izu islands with its improved port facilities and markedly developed tourist industry was examined, and an analysis was attempted of this isle's industrial structure and its changes, with on-the-spot surveys conducted to integrate a series of investigations.1) Formerly, the industrial structure of Keszushima Isle was composed mainly of conventional marine products industry, boat-fishing by men and seaweed gathering by women, complemented by small-scale livestock raising and sweet potato cultivation, and also by the government's unemployment relief public works. This minor-scale industrial makeup, essentially on a self-supporting basis, has undergone a drastic change, with the features specifically showing a decreasing weight of dependence on marine products, fish and sea-weed, and compensated for by an increasing weight of sugar pea cultivation, specialized on a commerical basis, and a rapidly extended sight-seeing business.In these radical changes in the industrial structure, which forced female employment to be widely reshuffled, the transition is considered to have been made with an appropriate labor allocation between men and women accompanied by a definitve pattern of specialization. It is certainly worthy of note that in this isolated island, with a narrow and weak economic base, all units of industry exist with close interrelations, including those in seasonally fluctuating work fields.2) It has been generally believed that the segregated existence of an isolated island is attributable to its inferiority in transportation links. This preoccupation is now facing a doubt raised by the fact that the industrial structure alteration appeared in Kôzushima Isle prior to the actual improvement of transportation conditions. Improvement in transportation is important in the industrial structure and people's life on an isolated island, but is it always an indispensable factor? It seems more adequate to think that the requirements from outside the island, which have become strong enough to overcome the poor transportation conditions, have brought great pressure to bear on the isolated island in changing its narrow and feeble economy.