Abstract
The present paper attempts to examine the recent changes in the employment structure and the trends of agriculture and farmers in a mountain village, Kamitakara-mura where most of workers are engaged in construction industry. Recent trends of the mountain village seem to be much affected by public policies of the Central Government.
In Japan, many mountain villages have experienced consistent and serious depopulation over the last twenty years. The causes of this population decrease have been explained by the economic decline of the mountain villages and also the increasing demand for labor force, especially the young workers, from metropolitan areas. There has been insufficient non-agricultural employment in those villages. It has caused a continued emigration out of those mountainous areas. But we might recognize the fact that employment in the mountainous areas has much increased after about 1965. It is caused by the manufacturing industries relocated from metropolitan areas to those areas for their cheap labor, or construction industries which have grown in the process of increasing public investment.
To be sure, much effort has been made for the study of both the nature and extent of depopulation and the economic change in mountainous areas, which is mostly concerned with traditional industries (agriculture and forestry). However there has been relatively little discussion of the employment structure and its relations to the trends of agriculture and farmers. Now we are postulated to clarify this problem for explaining and solving the decline of both population and economy in those areas. We have today several literatures which focus on the local labor market in mountain villages around industriarized areas. On the other hand, there are few field researches which tried to clarify the employment structure in mountain villages far distant from industriarized areas. In these villages, most of laborers cannot commute to industriarized areas and are mainly employed in local construction or forestry. Therefore the aim of this paper is to examine the following issues: 1. the expanding process of the local labor market, especially in case of construction industry. 2. the characteristics of employment, 3. the interrelationship between the employment opportunity and the trends of changing agriculture, 4, the trends of farmers in a sample settlement. The study area is Kamitakara-mura which is located at the foot of the Hida mountains in the northeastern part of Gifu Prefecture, central Japan. There are tourist resorts with the background of beautiful mountain landscapes and good spas. In winter this area has heavy snowfall which disturbs transportation and construction work. The following results were obtained:
1. After about 1965, the structure of the local labor market has distinguishably changed and the non-agricultural employment has much increased.
2. New employment opportunities have been created, for male workers by the construction industries which depend on the public investment, and for female workers by the leisure service sectors and small manufacturing industries such as textile and electronics. Most of laboreres (about 60%) in this village are not employed throughout the year. Every year, they lose their jobs in winter season and rely on unemployment insurance relief. Their low wages are supplemented with the unemployment allowance. Their employment conditions are not secured.
3. The changing process of agriculture after the Second World War was divided into three periods.
