INTERPREFECTURAL MIGRATION AND ITS EFFECTS ON PREFECTURAL POPULATIONS IN JAPAN: AN ANALYSIS BASED ON THE 1980 CENSUS

This paper analyses the 1979-80 migration data of the 1980 Japanese census, the emphasis being on the overall and age-specific redistributional potentials of inter-prefectural migration. The main findings are as follows. First, even after the onset of counterurbanization, when the overall redistributional potential of migration in Japan was substantially weakened, the interprefectural variation in population growth depended more strongly on inmigration, outmigration, and net migration than on birth, death, and natural growth. Second, the migration process in Japan shared several general properties with those in other developed countries, including the fact that out- and inmigration rates were positively correlated, and that the variation in net migration rate depended much more strongly on in-migration than on outmigration. Third, the redistributional potential of the migration of the 15–19 age group was strongest and was spatially least similar to those of most other age groups. Fourth, there were distinct age patterns in net migration rate among four types of prefectures: (1) metropolitan core, (2) suburban, (3) regional growth pole, and (4) peripheral rural, the contrast being sharpest between the first and the last type. Finally, while the phenomenon of 'retirement migration' was still missing in Japan, the strong age-selectivity in migration continued to distort the age compositions of prefectural populations so that the burden of the elderly is relatively severe in peripheral rural prefectures.