ABSTRACT
Rural deterioration is a global phenomenon faced by almost all industrializing and urbanizing societies in the world. In Japan, it is indicated by the fact that the rural population that occupied well over 70 per cent of the total population in the 1920s has decreased to just over 20 per cent in the early 1990s. Similarly, the proportion of those engaged in the primary industries (agriculture, fishery and forestry) has decreased from 19.9 per cent of the total population in 1955 to 2.1 per cent in 1993. The problem of the rural population drain and the consequent economic decline was so seriously felt that the Japanese government issued a special law concerning underpopulated areas in 1970. This introduced various measures to improve rural conditions, such as a redistribution of industrial centres, the introduction of special tax concessions and other financial subsidies. Through these measures, it was hoped to create more job opportunities, to raise the overall welfare level and thereby to reverse, or at least to slow down, population flow from rural to urban areas. Despite these efforts, however, the population flow from rural to urban areas has continued and the number of villages and towns (machi/mura) officially designated as ‘underpopulated areas’ (kasochiiki ) and therefore believed to need special protection, reached 1151 in 1980, nearly 40 per cent of the number of all such units in Japan (Kawamata 1985: 21). Moreover, the fact that most emigrants from rural areas were young and economically active aggravated the problem of population ageing. For instance, while the national average of the proportion of those aged 65 or over was about 12 per cent in 1990, in rural areas, it is often over one third of the whole population.
