2008 Volume 31 Issue 4 Pages 82-89
Regional vitalization has been an important policy subject for most local governments in recent years. Hence, a virtuous circle wherein people are attached to their areas of residence, participate in social activities, and form various organizations, such as community-based organizations and NPOs, is expected. In this paper, we discuss social participation in local activities from the viewpoint of social capital, and empirically analyze whether participation in local activities can become a motive for people to continue living in the area. As a result of analyzing the data of a national survey, we found that (1) the participation in local activities increases the willingness to continue living in the same region; (2) willingness differs in accordance with the organizations that people participate in, such as community-based activities, sports, hobbies and amusement activities, volunteering, NPOs, and civic activities; and (3) that participation frequency is high. Nevertheless, we found that (4) the influence of the participation in sports or hobbies, NPOs, or civic activities is not statistically significant.
