2021 Volume 44 Issue 4 Pages 78-88
As rural areas in Japan are suffering from aging populations and abandoned houses, along with the out-migration particularly among young people, local governments with many depopulated areas have been promoting positive rural life activities and experiences, subsidies for housing, and employment support for migrants moving to rural areas. Previous studies focused on the effectiveness of maintaining personal community networks between current residents and newcomer residents, however, networks may differ in terms of the subjective personal community network of surrounding mutual environments. Therefore, in order for newcomer residents to solidify their intent to settle in a rural area, this article focuses on the psychological mechanism of both current and newcomer residents as a factor of social support. It shows that newcomer resident intent to settle is determined by several factors. The result, based on multilevel analysis with M-plus, revealed that the variable of subjective personal community network with other current residents (i.e., within level) had a positive effect on the level of newcomer residents with intent to settle (i.e. between level).
