村落社会と人口移動

栃木県下一農村の調査報告

抄録

A survey of population mobility was made in a village in Tochigi Prefecture. First, social stratification in the surveyed village was analyzed. Secondly, the relationship between stratum affiliation of farm families and internal differentiation of the stream of population outflow was investigated.
The village studied is a purely agricultural village of a type commonly found in rural Japan. Structurally it is differentiated in a stratum of stabilized farmers and a stratum of poor farmers. The former stratum has as its nucleus several agricultural land-owners, and its members cultivates more than 1.5 cho (about 3.8 acres). The latter stratum consists of tenant-farmers who must find supplentary income outside of agriculture. The former stratum is the ruling group in the village, the latter the ruled. Between the two strata there still remains consinerable rigidity in the status hierarchy.
There seems to exist a relationship between stratum affiliation and family composition. The size of family in upper stratum whose farming seems to be stabilized is large, and its composition is complicated. As regards marriage, it has been found that : (a) the higher the status of a family, the fewer the marriages of daughters at a young age into adjacent villages. (b) The outflow of population to urban area due to the marriage of daughters occurs more frequently in the lower stratum than the upper, and (a) in the lower stratum, there are many instances of marriage where considerable age discrepancy exists.
Conditions of occupational outmigration to urban area differ with social and economic status of the family as determined by 1) the amount of land owned by the family and 2) whether the land is owned or tenant cultivated. For example, there is a positive relationship between low age of outmigration and low stratum affiliation. Also the lower the stratum affiliation of occupational outmigrants the larger the percentage of those who possess only primary school education.
Outmigrants from the upper and lower strata have different occupational positions after outmigration. Only upper stratum outmigrants who are highly educated can adjust to the conditions of urban living and seek better living condition. The other outmigrants cannot do this. The rarely change their working place or occupation. Usually the outmigrants to urban areas from lower stratum families have a very different time.
This survey would seem to indicate that studies of outmigration from rural to urban areas must examine not only gross figures of population shift, but also the varying social strata contributions to the stream of outmigrat ions.