ABSTRACT
The majority of Japanese people continued to live in rural areas until well into the inter-war period and agriculture remained the single largest sector of the economy and employer of workers throughout most of Japan's pre-war development. The rural economy thus dominated the national economy in quantitative terms many would now argue, that within it were formed the institutional structures, labour-force skills and attitudes to life and work that persisted through Japan's transformation. As the rural economy has increasingly become the focus of work both on present-day developing countries and on the roots of industrialisation in Europe, it has become possible to look at its role in Japan's long history of economic development. While the two-sector approach provided the means to begin the analysis and measurement of agriculture's part in economic growth, it has subsequently become clear that the agricultural and industrial sectors are intertwined, over the course of industrialisation.
