2023 Volume 59 Pages 8-23
In Japan, the concentration of young people in the Tokyo area has continued for many years. Creating an outward flow of young people from Tokyo is an important national issue. While there have been many studies on return migration, few have focused on the migration for a first job after graduation. This study aimed to investigate what contribute to return migration of university graduates at the time of their first job （U-turn at their first job）. The study analyzed individual data from the National Survey on Migration conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in 2016 using a probit model to examine （１） whether economic factors of the home prefecture and the place of residence at university graduation affected the probability of U-turn at their first job; and （２） whether the effect differed between men and women. Economic factors considered in this paper were "per capita, prefectural income," which indicates the level of income, and "active job openings-to-applicants ratio," which indicates the abundance of job openings. From the viewpoint of regional revitalization, the subjects of the analysis were non-Tokyo-area residents. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, better economic advantages of the home prefecture in terms of income and job opportunities increased the likelihood of U-turn at their first job for men who graduated from a university outside of their home prefecture. In contrast, the better economic advantages of the place of residence at university graduation reduced the likelihood of U-turn at their first job. For women, however, there was no significant relationship between the economic factors and U-turn at their first job. Second, men who made a U-turn at their first job tended to go to a university outside of their home prefecture regardless of the distance from their home prefecture and returned to their home prefecture after graduation. Conversely, women who made a U-turn at their first job tended to choose a university relatively close to their home prefecture and returned to their home prefecture regardless of the economic status of their home prefecture. The results indicates that other factors such as local amenities, family relations, and personal values, may be important in encouraging women to make a U-turn at their first job.
