Local Universities' Strategies to Establish Undergraduate Departments and Students' Inter-regional Migration: A Focus on the “Occupancy Rate of Students in the Prefecture”

Abstract

 Currently, in Japan, the influence of regional university activities in the community is attracting attention. Therefore, this study clarifies the effects of these strategies to establish undergraduate departments on students' inter-regional migration. By primarily employing data from the survey of university power and by conducting basic research on schools in 2016, the effects of “academic field trait” and “university location” on the “occupancy rate of students in the prefecture” of each department were examined. Two primary results obtained from the macro and micro analysis emerged: First, “low supply fields” has a low occupancy rate, whereas “qualification related fields” and “girls' preference fields” have a high occupancy rate. Second, there is a difference in the migration patterns of “big city adjacent prefectures” and “big city non-adjacent prefectures.”