What Is the Result of the Youth's Mobility? the Case of a Japanese Rural Areas.

In this presentation, results of Japanese youth’s migration to rural areas is discussed while introducing the case of Japan's domestic migration promotion policy that is progressing rapidly from 2009. In this discussion, the mobility of youth will be shown to lead to managing and adjusting human relationships of young people. In addition, it will be inspected how coordination of youth's relationships influences the identity construction of the youth. In Japanese rural areas, depopulation, low birthrate and aging, imbalance development compared to cities have become major serious difficult issues since the 1960s. Countermeasures against these issues by the state to supply support human resources, especially youth, to rural areas started recently. It was initiated by the government from 2009. Local governments employ young citizen residents who are interested in revitalization of rural areas and rural life as regional cooperation volunteers up to 3 years. The national government pays their expenses. With the support of this system, many young people migrate from cities to rural areas. From my empirical investigation, one of their migration motives turned out to be an adjustment of human relations. How the youth coordinates relationships has been becoming the significant and difficult issue in today's Japanese society because of social fluidity, social multi dimensions. The youth must acquire a personal position in the society by creating relationships by oneself, and build one's identity. Young people emigrate in hopes of escaping human relations in their hometown. They will change to weaker ties and build a new relationship by acquiring strong ties in rural areas. However, there is a tendency for only young immigrants who can successfully coordinate these relationships to continue settling, and as a result young people are plagued by the adjustment of relationships even at immigration destinations.