From the post war era to the high economic growth period, there was a mass population movement from rural areas to the cities. These migrants were believed to be the second or third son of agricultural families who were seen as subordinate members to “Ie”. However, recently some empirical studies criticized the theory on the movement of second or third son of agricultural families was an extremely simplified image. Besides, they proved that practically a certain degree of eldest sons who are seen as the successors of “Ie” migrated to urban city before WW2. Furthermore, they also found that the areas with higher education level faced more serious problem in lack of successors. This paper analyzed the process of higher educated eldest son migrated to urban city and formed Japanese modern family in urban city without being a succession of “Ie” based on the case studies in Taki Kyouyukai, a local associations of Sasayama city. According to this research, the formation of credential society in high economic growth period lowered the mental pressure of Elder sons to migrate. The reason was the shift of agricultural high school to industrial high school loosened the counterpart of Elder sons’ life course in their home town. This paper studied how all these changes in high economic growth period affect the relation between Eldest sons who had migrated to urban city and their “Ie” or the society of their hometown.

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This paper shed light on the construction process of rural gender through analyzing what rural women’s policy expect women in terms of their working sphere and their roles (mother/wife/farmer). Among the rural women’s policy, this paper deals with Home Life Improvement Extension Service implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Social Education programs by Ministry of Education. In the 1950s, extension service in Kumihama-cho area attempts to change eating habits to reduce women’s household labor on the presupposition that they could not reduce agricultural work. In the 1960s, extension service expect women to be a “housewife” who decrease agricultural work and are in charge of home life. In regards to the social education program in Kumihama-cho area, they emphasized education for agricultural production. In the 1950s, social education program empowered women’s group to get extra field and earn their personal expenses by selling the production. In the 1960s, social education program provided agricultural classes for rural women to be in charge of agricultural production of their farm household because their husband started to have another job. In the beginning of the 1970s, rural women were educated to be leaders of community development. Both of two policies targeted young brides in the farm household. In the 1950s, both of them intended to improve the sever situation of young brides without changing the gender systems. In the 1960s, both policies (re-) configure the women’s work sphere. On the one hand, extension service set it as housewife and mother and on the other hand, social education programs set it as “rural women”, who deals with farm household, agricultural production, and rural community. In addition to this, there were certain amount of women who engaged in none of these policies and they created their new place in their family by earning the biggest income by weaving at home. As a result, we can say that rural women were constructed with multi-layered agent/ subject by these policies.

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This article deals with the early stages of the issue of Japan’s aging society, especially in the country’s rural areas. At the beginning of the time of Japan’s rapid economic growth, many young people migrated to urban areas. This migration fundamentally changed Japanese families and communities. First, we consider the historical research on elderly people in the rural areas of Japan. Although there are many articles about elderly people’s history from ancient times to the early modern era, the modern history is unclear. On the basis of a survey of sociological monographs from that period, we can list six main points. Second, we shed light on the formation of the elderly persons’ group, Rojin Kurabu. In the 1960’s, many elderly persons’ groups were started locally, and they formed a national organization. Reading the diary written by the leader of one such group in Iida City, Nagano Prefecture, we see how this person acted in his everyday life as an organizer. Elderly persons often make conservative political statements, while also making changes to their traditional way of life. They gather together for study or their hobbies, a goal which is totally different from that of their past “stoic” working days. Rojin Kurabu was, in a sense, a social movement. Today, many people understand that the issue of Japan’s aging society is a serious social problem. Nevertheless, the subjectivity of the elderly persons concerned is often neglected. This study is a trial in that it takes a manuscript written by one elderly person as important source material. We have to listen to elderly people’s voices.

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In modern era, the northeast Japan was considered a developing area and had relatively low economic and health standards, especially in the 1930s. However, within this area, the Tsugaru region of Aomori Prefecture accounted for the highest apple production in Japan since the 1900s, and seemed to enjoy richness compared to the other regions of the prefecture even in the 1930s. The purpose of this study is to analyze why the peasants of Tsugaru region chose to cultivate apples, how they produced apples alongside rice despite the fact that these goods’ busy harvest season come at the same time, and what impact their faming management had on their living standards over time. The analysis reveals the following. (1) In Tsugaru region, peasants began to introduce the cultivation of apples from the 1900s, but this was done as a workaround; for these peasants, the most attractive crop was rice because it was more profitable than apples in the 1910s and 1920s and peasants could sell, store, and eat it. Some peasants purchased active paddy fields after becoming rich from apple cultivation. (2) Apple growers adopted labor-intensive technologies to make apples red in response to consumer preferences and to thereby increase their revenues. Although part of the labor force during the busy season was attracted from outside the prefecture by the offer of high wages, the labor quantity of peasant men and women increased due to the farming of these multiple crops. (3) There is a possibility that such labor environment raised the infant mortality rate, which is an index of mothers’ and children’s health, but the region experienced rapid economic development and, in the 1930s, a total production value per household that was close to the national average. This means that although the multiple farming of rice and apple increased the labor burden on peasants, it led to the economic development of the region.

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