2000 Volume 52 Issue 2 Pages 111-128
The Kudoyama area in Hyogo Prefecture has one of the heaviest snowfalls in the mountainous San'in district. This is a natural environment conducive to seasonal migrant workers in winter. Kudoyama also has a typical mountain village environment, with little level ground, preventing it from expanding its agriculture and cattle breeding as basic industries. Consequently, seasonal worker migration has been essential for the inhabitants to earn a living.
The purpose of this research is to obtain solutions to the transformations of activity of seasonal migrant workers in the Kudoyama area, the characteristics of their migration behavior and the situation creating seasonal migrant workers.
The results of this study can be summarized as follows:
1. The typical occupations of seasonal migrant workers in this area are -running a noodle (udon) stall of a traditional and technical type, sake brewing, the manufacturing of frozen bean curd, charcoal making of a traditional and non-skilled type, and construction laborers of non-skilled and industrial reserve army type. Running an udon stall has been an especially traditional occupation since the Edo era. However, these activities have declined since their peak around 1955.
2. With little employment to bind them, seasonal migrant workers show remarkable fluidity in terms of occupations and workplaces in their search for better working conditions. This fluidity is highest among charcoal makers, followed by sake brewers and construction workers. However, a closer examination of sake brewers reveals that some people change their place of occupation every one or two years, while others continue working at the same place for a long time. On the other hand, it was found that frozen bean curd manufacturers and those running udon stalls are occupations which possess extremely high degree of stability.
3. By combining the changing patterns of workplaces and the type of occupation, the types of activity of seasonal migrant workers can be divided roughly into three: 1) single occupation-fixed workplace; 2) single occupation-multiple workplaces; and 3) multiple occupations-multiple workplaces. The characteristics of the activity of each type is also elaborated.
4. The residential areas in the Kudoyama area can be roughly divided as follows: 1) Kudoyama area as the primary residential area; 2) neighboring areas including Hamasaka, Onsen, Kasumi and Muraoka as the secondary residential area; 3) Tajima district as a tertiary residential area; and 4) the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe (Keihanshin) region as workplaces more removed than Tajima district.
5. In the Kudoyama area, those who reach working age are motivated by "stimulation from people who live in the neighboring areas" and by obtaining information from various residential areas. After selecting appropriate information about occupations and workplaces for seasonal migrant work, they make a decision and move into the migrant work force. Those who become accustomed and adapt themselves to their occupations and workplaces hold on to their jobs for a long time. However, those who cannot adapt, or those who want better working conditions, start again, select the information, then change their occupation and place of work.
Although seasonal worker migration has maintained its long tradition and supported the life of residents in mountain areas, these activities have declined markedly in Japan as a whole. This article has achieved its purpose by elucidating the transformations in the activity of seasonal migrant workers, their characteristic behavior, and the situation that gives rise to them at the micro scale level-the village.
