Mobility In Japan Research Articles

Rural mobility and socio-spatial impacts in Japan: A case study of Kutchan, Hokkaido

Counterurbanisation, a phenomenon signifying the urban exodus, primarily highlights certain aspects of rural mobility while often overlooking its diverse nature. With globalisation, a new wave of challenges has emerged in rural areas due to an increase in transnational mobility, complexities that have remained largely under-explored. This research paper addresses these gaps by examining the impact of rural mobility on Kutchan, Hokkaido, Japan, a rural town that has experienced significant social and spatial transformations due to an influx of domestic and transnational migrants, supplemented by increased investment. By analysing population data from 1959 to 2022, the study identifies the period when rural mobility emerged as the dominant demographic trend. Subsequently, it examines the impact of rural mobility on demographic changes, socio-economic shifts, and housing dynamics in both the ski and non-ski tourism areas of Kutchan during this period. The findings reveal that rural mobility has been the primary factor affecting Kutchan's demographic structure since 2000. From 2000 to 2010, highly educated foreign residents supplanted local Japanese residents with basic education, sparking a rise in housing prices and a transition from small entrepreneurs to large institutions in the ski tourism area. From 2015 to 2020, the influx of large institutions and capital associated with transnational migrants caused a significant rise in housing prices, thereby accelerating the displacement of Japanese residents throughout Kutchan. These social and spatial changes align with the patterns of gentrification. This empirical study contributes to existing scholarship by emphasising the significant temporal and spatial impact of rural mobility in Japan within the context of globalisation.

Birth order and intergenerational income mobility in Japan: Is the first‐born child different?

AbstractThis study examines how birth order affects intergenerational income mobility (IGM) in Japan, focusing on the difference in IGM between firstborn and later‐born children. The elasticities of sons’ income with respect to fathers’ income are separately estimated for sons who are firstborn and sons who are later born by family size using a two‐sample, two‐stage least squares approach. For sons born in 1926–1981, this study finds that in families with four or more children, intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) for firstborn sons is substantially and significantly higher than that for later‐born sons. However, no significant birth order effects are found in households with two or three children.

Novel indicator for the spread of new coronavirus disease 2019 and its association with human mobility in Japan

The Japanese government adopted policies to control human mobility in 2020 to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The present study examined the impact of human mobility on COVID-19 cases at the prefectural level in Japan by devising an indicator to have a relationship between the number of infected people and on human mobility. We calculated origin–destination travel mobility within prefectures in Japan from March 1st to December 31st, 2020, using mobile phone data. A cross-correlation function (CCF) was used to examine the relationship between human mobility and a COVID-19 infection acceleration indicator (IAI), which represents the rate of change in the speed of COVID-19 infection. The CCF of intraprefectural human mobility and the IAI in Tokyo showed a maximum value of 0.440 at lag day 12, and the IAI could be used as an indicator to predict COVID-19 cases. Therefore, the IAI and human mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic were useful for predicting infection status. The number of COVID-19 cases was associated with human mobility at the prefectural level in Japan in 2020. Controlling human mobility could help control infectious diseases in a pandemic, especially prior to starting vaccination.

Bifurcated incorporation and migrant social mobility in Japan

AbstractThe context of reception is crucial in establishing different mobility pathways for migrants within host societies. Given that access to government resources is increasingly reserved for citizens and permanent residents and most states provide relatively few avenues to naturalization or permanent residence, host country human capital and social networks are often vital for upward social mobility. I use a variety of research methods including 60 semi‐structured interviews, over 800 hour of participant and non‐obtrusive observation, and ethnography from a 14‐month period in 2011–2012 in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area to investigate how Sub‐Saharan African migrants pursue mobility within Japanese society. I theorize that there are two distinct groups of long‐term staying migrants in Japan: one initially incorporated as unskilled laborers and another initially incorporated as skilled laborers. Migrants initially incorporated as skilled workers have comparatively greater access to state resources and discretion to incorporate as individuals. Migrants initially incorporated as unskilled laborers must rely on the intervention of native‐born individuals in order to experience upward mobility. These findings suggest that visa status is an important signal of initial migrant incorporation trajectory and a significant moderating factor for individual outcomes and social mobility in Japan.

Peculiar COVID-19 effects in the Greater Tokyo Area revealed by spatiotemporal variabilities of tropospheric gases and light-absorbing aerosols

Abstract. This study investigated the spatiotemporal variabilities in nitrogen dioxide (NO2), formaldehyde (HCHO), ozone (O3), and light-absorbing aerosols within the Greater Tokyo Area, Japan, which is the most populous metropolitan area in the world. The analysis is based on total tropospheric column, partial tropospheric column (within the boundary layer), and in situ observations retrieved from multiple platforms as well as additional information obtained from reanalysis and box model simulations. This study mainly covers the 2013–2020 period, focusing on 2020 when air quality was influenced by the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Although total and partial tropospheric NO2 columns were reduced by an average of about 10 % in 2020, reductions exceeding 40 % occurred in some areas during the pandemic state of emergency. Light-absorbing aerosol levels within the boundary layer were also reduced for most of 2020, while smaller fluctuations in HCHO and O3 were observed. The significantly enhanced degree of weekly cycling of NO2, HCHO, and light-absorbing aerosol found in urban areas during 2020 suggests that, in contrast to other countries, mobility in Japan also dropped on weekends. We conclude that, despite the lack of strict mobility restrictions in Japan, widespread adherence to recommendations designed to limit the COVID-19 spread resulted in unique air quality improvements.

Distributed lag interrupted time series model for unclear intervention timing: effect of a statement of emergency during COVID-19 pandemic

BackgroundInterrupted time series (ITS) analysis has become a popular design to evaluate the effects of health interventions. However, the most common formulation for ITS, the linear segmented regression, is not always adequate, especially when the timing of the intervention is unclear. In this study, we propose a new model to overcome this limitation.MethodsWe propose a new ITS model, ARIMAITS-DL, that combines (1) the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model and (2) distributed lag functional terms. The ARIMA technique allows us to model autocorrelation, which is frequently observed in time series data, and the decaying cumulative effect of the intervention. By contrast, the distributed lag functional terms represent the idea that the intervention effect does not start at a fixed time point but is distributed over a certain interval (thus, the intervention timing seems unclear). We discuss how to select the distribution of the effect, the model construction process, diagnosing the model fitting, and interpreting the results. Further, our model is implemented as an example of a statement of emergency (SoE) during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in Japan.ResultsWe illustrate the ARIMAITS-DL model with some practical distributed lag terms to examine the effect of the SoE on human mobility in Japan. We confirm that the SoE was successful in reducing the movement of people (15.0–16.0% reduction in Tokyo), at least between February 20 and May 19, 2020. We also provide the R code for other researchers to easily replicate our method.ConclusionsOur model, ARIMAITS-DL, is a useful tool as it can account for the unclear intervention timing and distributed lag effect with autocorrelation and allows for flexible modeling of different types of impacts such as uniformly or normally distributed impact over time.

Analysis of the impact of non-compulsory measures on human mobility in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic

To curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world have imposed restrictions on their population. This study quantitatively assessed the impact of non-compulsory measures on human mobility in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the analysis of large-scale anonymized mobile-phone data. The non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) method was used to analyze mobile statistics data from the Tokyo area. The results confirmed the suitability of the NMF method for extracting behavior patterns from aggregated mobile statistics data. Data analysis results indicated that although non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) measures adopted by the Japanese government are non-compulsory and rely largely on requests for voluntary self-restriction, they are effective in reducing population mobility and motivating people to practice social distancing. In addition, the current study compared the mobility change in three cities (i.e., Tokyo, Osaka, and Hiroshima), and discussed their similarity and difference in behavior pattern changes during the pandemic. It is expected that the analytical tool proposed in this study can be used to monitor mobility changes in real-time during the pandemic, as well as the long-term evolution of population mobility patterns in the post-pandemic phase.

Population aging and labor mobility in Japan

By combining the static and dynamic computable general equilibrium models, this paper explores the dynamic impact of future demographic changes on the Japanese economy with a particular focus on multisector production and overlapping generations. Several numerical results were obtained. First of all, the sectoral real GDPs of the aging-related sectors are expected to continue to increase due to the higher demand generated by the elderly, while the total real GDP is forecasted to start to decrease from year 2036 due to the shrinking population. Secondly, calculations show that nearly 60 million more workers will be needed in the private long-term care sector in year 2049 than in year 2018. Thirdly, if a 90 percent inflow of additionally needed labor force to the medical services sector were to be obstructed, the total real GDP would shrink by 0.064 percent. If the same inflow obstruction were to occur to the private long-term care sector, the total real GDP would shrink by 0.030 percent. Fourthly, while a negative impact of the inelastic labor mobility was seen in almost all simulations, the impact of an obstruction in the medical service sector was found to be positive for the pharmaceutical sector due to substitution effect. Finally, the inelastic labor mobility will not only reduce the Japanese economic performance but also welfare, the extent of which depends on the duration of labor immobility. Thus, it is crucial for future economic growth as well as welfare of aging Japan that the additionally needed labor inflow to all aging-related sectors occurs smoothly.

Intercultural Competence Development Through Cocurricular and Extracurricular At-Home Programs in Japan

The rapid development of international education has occurred alongside a growing demand for higher education institutions to educate globally competent graduates. Yet, mobility remains a distant opportunity for most students, and Japanese undergraduate students often cite financial, safety, and job-hunting concerns as obstacles to studying abroad. Internationalisation-at-home has emerged as a viable alternative to mobility in Japan through government-funded internationalisation programs. This article will discuss the impact of cocurricular and extracurricular programs on the development of intercultural competence among 164 first-year Japanese students at two Top Global universities in Japan. Results from a one-year longitudinal, mixed methods study reveal that while formal programs positively affect intercultural competence development, informal intercultural contact on campus negatively affects students’ intercultural attitudes. Findings also indicate that student perceptions of intercultural competence at the pre-intervention stage affect engagement with intercultural opportunities on campus, suggesting the importance of introducing interventions prior to higher education.

Regular employment and intergenerational income mobility in Japan

Using 1995 and 2005 Survey of Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM), this paper analyzes the effect of being regularly employed on intergenerational income mobility (IGM) from fathers to sons in Japan. Using Two Sample Two Stage Least Square (TS2SLS) method by which fathers’ income is imputed by their characteristics since it is unobservable, intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) between fathers and sons who are employees is estimated, and IGE is decomposed following a well-established framework. Focusing on sons born from 1935 to 1976, this paper finds that IGE increased from 1995 to 2005. The contribution rate of whether being regular employees in current job or not to IGE increased from less than 2% in 1995 to over 9% in 2005, and the increasing in IGE explained by regular employment status accounts for around 30% of increasing in IGE between father and sons who are employees from 1995 to 2005. The dominating reason for this pattern is that it had become difficult for sons from less prosperous families to find regular positions after the collapse of traditional employment structure since late 1990s. This study indicates that “how are people employed” had impeded equality of opportunities for youth and had exacerbated intergenerational transmission of income inequality in Japan.

International program and provider mobility in Japan: policies, activities and challenges

Japan has traditionally emphasized international student recruitment and exchange as priorities in its internationalization strategy. However, little attention has been given to the increasing importance of international program and provider mobility (IPPM), which includes international branch campuses, franchise programs, international joint universities and joint/double degree programs. This article analyzes the policies, status and role of IPPM to meet future needs of Japanese higher education. The study reveals that the full potential of IPPM is not realized given the government's restrictive regulations for the establishment of Japanese programs and international branch campuses abroad as well as foreign higher education providers in Japan. While regulations are necessary to ensure quality and achieve the multiple benefits of IPPM provision, there is a need to re-examine and relax some of the government regulations that serve as barriers. The success of the three Japanese international joint universities provides evidence that Japanese universities are motivated and experienced in working collaboratively with international partners and looking for new IPPM opportunities. Scholars, policy analysts, and academics interested in Japan’s engagement with the rest of the world through collaborating with foreign higher education partners will benefit from this analysis of current and past IPPM activities and policies and the call for further research.

Mobility in the Work of Haruki Murakami, Focusing on Dance Dance Dance as a Narrative of Mobility

This article discusses how advanced capitalism, criticized in Haruki Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance (1988), relates to “mobility,” which defines human life as well as Murakami’s narrative strategy. Various forms of movement in Murakami’s novels have yet to be observed in previous studies, possibly due to readings of advanced capitalism and alienation being limited to the Japanese context. Applying the issue of mobility to Dance Dance Dance can be a useful tool in analyzing the universality of Murakami’s work in the contemporary world. The concept of mobility includes technological means and infrastructure for movement of individuals, people who move around, networks of people, and places. Research on mobility is interdisciplinary in its direction, and it is only in recent years, even in Europe that the idea of mobility was applied to literary studies. Along with mobility, the concept of “immobility” can also be explored. Immobility involves a person whose movement is denied or suppressed, the network that the person forms, and the place for such a network. In Dance Dance Dance, we find the starting point of mobility in Japan in the late 1980s better than any other novels by the author or by other writers in contemporary Japanese literature. Murakami might not have intended to deal with this theme. Although he opposes capitalism, the mobility he represents in his novels still works within the capitalist system. The narratorthinks he rejects advanced capitalism, yet his mobility capital in actual life is optimized for the mobility of driving, traveling, and walking. The narrator does not work, but he always has money to spend whenever he feels the need to travel to forget his loneliness. Moreover, in the adventure of “occult code/travel,” the main character always secures safety even if the people around him are in danger. This is also true for the readers: they solve mysterious cases that the protagonist cannot understand, and they are participants in the scene. The fantasy of movement in Dance Dance Dance as a mobility narrative is the basic element ofthe global attributes of Murakami’s works.

The experience of Western European states and Japan mobilization deployment during the World War I and its use in modern conditions

This article specifies that the mobilization preparation of the economy is the most important part of the organization of defense and security of any state. The socio-economic content of such categories as “mobilization”, “mobilizability”, “mobilization economy”, “mobilization deployment” and “economic mobilization” is defined in full. The main features of the mobilization economy and peculiarities of economic mobilization are defined. Features of economic mobilization are considered. It is emphasized that a need for economic mobilization arose relatively recently – during the World War I when many-millioned armies were deployed, which in their turn required huge material resources. The world experience of mobilization deployment during the First World War is analyzed: the experience of Western European states is studied on the example of Germany, England and France, as well as Japan. The reasons prevented the rapid deployment of military production are established. It is established that the mobilization deployment of the economy as a process of turning the country's military and economic potential into a real defense power depends on many factors, including general economic capabilities of a state, the degree of readiness of its economy to switch to the wartime regime and ensure timely military production in the required volumes and assortment. Based on the analysis, the author formulated certain conclusions that can be considered at the present time when solving the problems of the mobilization economy in many countries, including the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Family Structure and Intergenerational Class Mobility in Japan:

Family Structure and Intergenerational Class Mobility in Japan:

Negative Assimilation: How Immigrants Experience Economic Mobility in Japan

This paper examines the economic mobility of foreign migrants in Japan. In a country that is largely regarded as homogeneous and closed to outsiders, how and to what extent do immigrants achieve economic success? A survey conducted by the authors revealed that the conventional assimilationist perspective does not fully explain immigrants’ economic success in Japan. Migrants from the West experience what Chiswick and Miller (2011) refer to as “negative assimilation.” That is, their earnings decline over time in Japan. While negative assimilation was not clearly observed among immigrants from neighboring Asian countries, wages among them did not increase with the length of their stay in Japan. For both groups, the skills they brought from abroad were found to be largely accountable for their economic success, while locally specific human capital, such as education acquired in the host society, did not contribute to their earnings.

Research Development from Acceptance to the Meaning of Acquired Disability in People with Impaired Mobility in Japan

AbstractJapanese studies examining psychosocial issues in people with acquired mobility‐related disabilities have been developed under the influence of rehabilitation psychology theories, such as the theory of value change and stage theory, established in theUnitedStates. InJapan, the combination of disability acceptance and stage theory is distinctive, focusing on the occurrence of depression. These psychosocial studies have been criticized, because they have placed excessive emphasis on individual factors and have underestimated sociocultural factors from a long‐term perspective. Therefore, researchers have begun to examine the meanings of disabilities via qualitative analysis, as they have not assumed psychological goals, such as acceptance or adjustment. These studies have revealed that people with disabilities tend to revise the meanings of disabilities, as they lead their lives in diverse contexts with respect to coping. Stories that have involved “subjunctivizing” reality have deepened participants’ understanding of their lives and have allowed for the identification of new meanings for disabilities. These studies also value identity development in people with disabilities via relationships with those with diverse disabilities. Further studies examining the association between these results and disability welfare from a lifespan perspective are required.

Intermodality and Beyond: For a New History of Mobility in Japan

A major intervention of mobility studies has been to suggest a new framework for the writing of history. Recent studies of diasporic Indian Ocean communities and trans-Pacific labor migration have shown that mobility history can open the door to histories of mobile subjects rather than static nations and, in the process, lead the way toward a transmodal and transnational research agenda. This article considers what the history of mobility has to offer to the modern history of transport and social life in the Japanese archipelago, which has most often been used to tell the story of the development of the modern Japanese nation-state.

Labour Market Flexibilisation and the Disadvantages of Immigrant Employment: Japanese-Brazilian Immigrants in Japan

This study investigates the manner in which labour market flexibilisation is linked to the incorporation of Brazilian immigrants and their prospects for upward mobility in Japan. Although earlier studies have documented these relationships in North America and Europe, little is known about the socio-economic circumstances and recent changes in institutional settings in several Asian countries that currently accept a large number of immigrants. The results of this study indicate that the human and social capital of Brazilian immigrants has played a minor role in helping them to obtain standard employment. The highly regulated labour market in Japan has hindered the efforts of Brazilian immigrants to gain access to ‘good’ jobs with stable employment prospects, regardless of the degree of human and social capital that is possessed by individual immigrants. In addition, the recent increase in labour market flexibility has rendered it exponentially more difficult for Brazilian immigrants to enter the core employment sector. These institutional conditions for Brazilian immigrants have shaped the mechanisms of their integration and thereby prevented them from achieving upward mobility in Japanese society. These findings also reflect a lack of public debate and institutional support for the integration of immigrants into the wider Japanese society.

Intergenerational earnings mobility in Japan among sons and daughters: levels and trends

This paper estimates the extent of intergenerational income mobility in Japan among sons and daughters born between 1935 and 1975. Our estimates rely on a two-sample instrumental variables approach using representative data from the Japanese Social Stratification and Mobility surveys, collected between 1965 and 2005. Father’s income is predicted on the basis of a rich set of variables, and we discuss changes in the Japanese earnings structure for cohorts born between the early 1900s and the 1960s. Our main results indicate that the intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) for both sons and daughters in Japan lies around 0.35, which is an intermediate value, by international standards. We discuss the sensitivity of the IGE to using either personal or family income as the income variable for both fathers and children. We also examine changes across cohorts in the IGE. Results indicate that intergenerational mobility has been roughly stable over the last decades.

Beyond mobile number portability: measuring consumer preferences for service portability in Japan's mobile phone market

Japan's mobile phone market has been oligopolized by three incumbents who are seeking vertically integrated business models, which may prevent competitors from using platform layers to provide original services. We conduct two types of conjoint analysis to measure consumer stated preferences and draw two main conclusions from the analyses. First, the average consumer is willing to pay more than JPY 2000 (US $20) to increase mobile service portability. Second, the average consumer's willingness to pay corresponds to JPY 100–200 (US $1–2) per song for securing music download platforms. A dilemma exists in consumer preferences for service portability in Japan's mobile phone market, namely the choice between free mobile service portability and convenient music download platforms.