In “Disappearing Localities”, Masuda raised an alarm that 523 local municipalities in Japan will most likely disappear by 2040 due to the declining population. However, the study seemingly overlooked the phenomenon of reverse migration to rural areas. This process of “counter-urbanization”, as it is known, has been widely discussed lately, but researched little. This research attempted to identify factors affecting migration to 371 local municipalities using econometric analysis. It demonstrated that migrations are affected by factors such as financial health index, agriculture sales, consumer price index, subsidies for senior welfare and primary industries, and the number of preschools and clinics.
