2021 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 204-211
This article aims to explore why miners’ children became miners during a rapid growth period in Hokkaido. For this purpose, we use company materials and interview data on graduates of mining schools. From the late 1950s, the coal industry in Japan declined, but leading companies trained miners’ children at mining schools in order to survive. Miners’ children considered their family situation and decided whether to enter a high school or a mining school. Students of mining schools worried about their future, but they used the promotion system for graduates of mining school and became leading miners. This article indicates that career decision studies focusing on the character of an industry and region can help to explore the intergenerational succession of laborers and their family lives.
