In Japan, the information service industry has recorded a sharp increase in sales since the 1980s, which has produced great demand for IT engineers. Firms located in metropolitan areas have been trying to meet the demand by employing IT engineers who have nonmetropolitan origins. However, they tend to expect to return to live in their hometowns. Therefore firms, especially large computer makers, locate their subsidiaries or branch offices outside metropolitan areas to hire returned migrants and hometown-oriented engineers.
In this paper, the author examines the labor market for IT engineers and their work careers based on a questionnaire survey of IT engineers working in information service firms located in the Kyushu region. IT engineers often move between firms and between regions. Sixty percent of respondents had experienced a change in their employment and 36% had previously worked outside the Kyushu region. Among respondents, aged 36 years or older, engineers who had previously worked outside the Kyushu region were in the majority. Thus return migrants play an important role in the labor market for IT engineers in the Kyushu region.
As they advance in age, the occupations of IT engineers shift from programmer to systems engineer, and then some are promoted to manager. These occupational changes occur with both transfers and moves between firms. The annual wage level of engineers increases in relation to age. Moving between firms does not lower the annual wage level of those who are experienced if the move is within the Kyushu region. Return migrants usually worked at larger firms before they came back to the Kyushu region and appear to acquire a fairly high skill level. The annual wage level is negatively affected if they move from firms located outside the Kyushu region to firms in Kyushu. This indicates that there is a mismatch between jobs and applicants when return migrants seek jobs. Return migrants must collect information about jobs far away from the orgins and have difficulty making contact with employers. To reduce the disadvantages of return migrants and make the most of the skills they have, an interactive job search information system should be provided.

View full abstract

This paper aims to reveal the process of formation of fish distribution channels by street traders, with special attention to the transaction network of traders in suburban Hanoi. The transaction record books of middlemen are used for the analysis of relationships between the spatial pattern of the network and aquaculture production.
Doi Moi, the economic reform, legalized private business and the sales in marketplaces proliferated. The inspection gates on national roads were removed, which allowed rural people to commute to Hanoi freely. Fish retailers including street traders mainly consist of Hanoi residents and residents of the suburban area 15 to 20km south of the city. Many Hanoi residents were formerly employed in state enterprises. Those who started businesses after the 1990s became street traders, while those started before Doi Moi secured places in fixed marketplaces. Most residents in the suburban area started fish trading in the 1990s. These suburban residents own small rice field plots, but depend mainly on trading for their household income.
Street traders living in Hanoi tend to choose marine fish to sell, although freshwater fish are more popular in Hanoi. This tendency is due to complexity in price evaluation and access to sellers in the trade of freshwater fish. As a result, traders rely on one wholesale market for buying fish. On the other hand, suburban traders have a variety of choices of fish and sellers. For these traders, the formation of transaction networks with middlemen and producers is important, which the analysis of trader hierarchy in informal-sector studies have tended to ignore.
Aquaculture production of freshwater fish by household units generally employs a polyculture method, that is, the culture of several different species in one pond. Since the culture area is small, the harvest frequency is limited to a few times a year. Each middleman conducts transactions with several producers so that they provide traders with a daily supply. The traders involved in this transaction network are not limited to the middlemen's village or prefecture. The spatial structure of the networks shows that they were developed in response to the various fish species produced in each pond, although they were initially formed on the basis of geographic proximity. For the middlemen to develop such networks, local marketplaces are important for information exchange.
It is suggested that the formation process of the transaction relationships of street traders should not be analyzed solely from the viewpoint of a hierarchical structure with a wholesaler at its summit. Street traders have a variety of selling and buying strategies, using commodities and places that are available between their residences and selling places. In the case of Hanoi, where the informal sector consists of many suburban residents, it is important to pay attention to the transaction networks developed through local marketplaces.

View full abstract

The aim of this paper is to consider the mobility determinants for blind and visually impaired people in their daily lives based on the relationships between the behavioral environments evaluated and personal attributes.
First, factor analysis was used to summarize types and levels of satisfaction for behavioral environments by blind and visually impaired people. Second, multiple regression analysis was used to investigate relationships between their mobility, as defined by the rate of independent behavior, evaluation factors reflecting the levels of satisfaction regarding behavioral environments, and the personal attributes of subjects. Third, we applied cluster analysis to classify the subjects into subgroups with relatively homogenous evaluations of their behavioral environment. The following relationships were identified:
(1) Levels of satisfaction for behavioral environments
Analyses confirmed that there are five factors regulating the various levels of satisfaction with the behavioral environments: physical support; spatial orientation; the nature of physical impairment; provision and utilization of information needed regarding behavior; and degree to which subjects undertake behavioral performance. These factors should be treated as mutually complementary when we discuss the relationships between an individual's mobility and levels of satisfaction with behavioral environments. It is noteworthy that these findings indicate that in order to understand the attitudes of blind and visually impaired people we must consider not only psychological but also social and physical elements.
(2) Mobility determinants and the characteristics of blind and visually impaired people
Multiple regression analysis shows that there is no strong correlation between mobility and levels of satisfaction. This means that the level of satisfaction regarding behavioral environments is not always a defining element in the mobility of blind and visually impaired people. Rather, variations in the personal attributes of subjects are related to satisfaction level. These results can be explained by following situations: a) people forced to behave independently had a high satisfaction level regarding their own skills needed for independent behaviors, but their levels of satisfaction with their social and physical environment were relatively low; b) people supported by family members or helpers had high satisfaction levels regarding the physical and information supports needed for behavior.
We can conclude that blind and visually impaired people's mobility can show great diversity dueto individual differences even, when subjects share the same type of impairment. Overall variation is a function of differences in the degree of disability, consciousness of the behavioral environment, and the behavioral environments surrounding subjects. Therefore we should carefully consider physical, psychological, and social aspects of barriers to clarify the constraints on their daily travel behavior. Understanding the relationships between the individual satisfaction levels and the personal attributes of subjects will contribute to developing effective policies and efforts to removepsychological and social barriers to their daily travel behavior.

View full abstract