Census data on “Average Issues per Married Woman” is one of the most effective measures for revealing the changes in the distributional patterns of fertility.
Three maps of the patterns of average births per woman in the age categories 20-29 (Map 1), 30-39 (Map 2), and 40-49 (Map 3) in 1960 reveal that the highest fertility in all three categories is found in the northern rural area and the lowest fertility is found in urban areas of the prefecture. Examination of maps 1 and 2 shows a recent decline in fertility in urban areas along the Sanriku Coast compared to other urban areas.
Fertility differentials between urban and rural areas has been diminishing in Japan as a whole, but in Iwate Prefecture, at least, which is one of the highest fertility prefectures in Japan, this differential continues.