2007 Volume 53 Issue 2 Pages 153-172
Japanese economic geography has been mainly focusing on the production process of industry. In this paper, the author tried to situate the reproduction process of labor power and the next generation in the rightful place in studying the spatial configuration of postwar Japan. Japan has achieved population turnaround during 1950s because of popularization of artificial abortion. Many people who were born before the population turnaround migrated from rural areas to large metropolitan areas and filled brisk labor demand during the period of rapid economic growth. Thus, Japanese metropolitan areas, which were growth engines of Japanese economy, acquired the population structure with high percentage of working age people. Just as the first oil crisis occurred and Japanese economy had diminished in growth speed, population flows to the metropolitan areas had rapidly declined, because the main components of the flows had changed to the post-population-turnaround generation whose cohort volume was small. It was fortunate for Japanese economy not to retain surplus labor in metropolitan areas in the age of slow growth. Above mentioned story shows reproduction process of labor power and the next generation surely influence economic system and corresponding spatial structure independent of production imperative. Most people who move to the metropolitan areas put root in metropolitan areas and usually purchased detached houses. This movement expanded metropolitan areas outward and underpinned the sustainable rise in land price. After purchased, owner occupied houses became anchoring points of consumption. People actively demanded consumer durables thereby supporting the development of Japanese manufacturing companies. Virtuous cycle went on and the life of metropolitan dwellers was integrated into this cycle. The decentralization of industry begun in 1970s was based on spatial division of labor within corporate structure, and has established the hierarchical regional relationship. But simple center-periphery spatial structure was not enough to understand the whole process of decentralization. Tohoku, the northern part of mainland Japan, has received more manufacturing employments than Kyusyu, a big island in the southwestern part of Japan archipelago. This can be related to the difference of family system and structure of household economy between these two regions. Based on above mentioned empirical inquiries, the author reasserts that the reproduction process of labor power and the next generation had certainly been mounted in the economic system which enables the rapid economic growth and succeeding stability of economics of postwar Japan and thereby produced the spatial structure of the nation and large metropolitan area of that period.
