ABSTRACT
The so-called interwar period is regarded as a crucial period of economic and social change in Japan. Usually, this change is characterised by terms like industrialisation, urbanisation and the spread of education. The impact of these developments on the society as a whole did not become clearly visible before the years following the Russo-Japanese war; it wholly materialised during the boom years of the First World War, when regional and social mobility, especially the transfer of labour from agricultural to non-agricultural occupations-combined with a move from rural to urban areaswas accelerated by rapid economic growth.
