Uneven Development and Regional Difference

Abstract

In the process of structural transformation of capitalistic economy accompanying the high economic growth of Japan in the 30's of Showa, the regional problems such as regional difference of income, over-concentration of population and capital in metropolitan region and excessive out-flow of population in rural districts came into question one after another.
This report aims at clarifing the relation between inter-regional differetials and uneven development of economy in the present phase.
In Japan, there was remarkably uneven development between agriculture and manufacture in the pre-war period, and in parallel with it the inter-regional differences of income was very large.
As the result of marked development of heavy and chemical industries in the 30's of Showa, this inter-sectional discrepancy in industry was greatly intensified.
Then, in order to see the change of regional differences in economic power from the pre-war to post-war period, I divided the whole country into 16 economic regions, and examined the percentage distribution of the amount of production income and personal income of these regions in 1930, 1935, 1940, 1952, 1956, 1960 and 1964 respectively, and further followed the changes of inter-regional differentials in the index number of per-head personal income.
Those figures proved that, in the period of high economic growth the degree of concentration of the amount of production income and personal income to the three central industrial regions has augmented markedly, or in other words, the regional concentration of economic power has been intensified much more, but reversely the inter-regional differentials of the level of per-head income and consumption had contracted.
The main reason of this contrariety may be ascribed to the excessive city-ward movement of labor-force in the agriculture at this period.
But how was this excessive out-flow produced? We may count as one of the most important conditions the change of social psychological effect produced by the inter-regional differentials of income and level of living. This marked change was yielded with the transformation of social and economic structure in both urban and rural communities.
The amount of per-head income of farm households was only 40% of that of city-dwellers, so the difference of income and level of living between urban and rural was very large.
But this marked differentials rather symbolized the heterogeneity of the mode of life between urban and rural communities, and in spite of their poor income the stability of farmer's life was very high.
Now, the level of living in the rural district rose markedly, and the differentials between urban and rural were reduced considerably. In accordance with this, the heterogeneity of mode of life almost faded away.
In spite of this levelling tendency of regional living conditions which is called urbanization of rural life, the inter-regional diffentials of income still remain on the small scale.
But the ballancing effort of this slight differentials of income has provoked the excessive city-ward movement of farm population.
To consider the problem of regional income difference of Japan at the present, it is needed to grasp it as the contradictive result produced by the uneven development of regional economy in such a levelling tendency of income and living conditions.