52 TheEconomistJune 29th 2019
1W
hen Hisaaki Nakajima ran for mayor
of Imabetsu, on the northernmost tip
of Honshu, Japan’s main island, he said he
had a vision of a town of 2,000 people. That
may have sounded odd, given that Ima-
betsu had 2,700 inhabitants at the time (in
2017). But it is shrinking fast. Since Mr Na-
kajima took office, the population has de-
clined by around 150, or some 6%. On a
pleasant spring day the streets are almost
empty; many buildings are disused. A big
pachinko parlour at the entrance to the
town lies in ruin.
Villages and towns across Japan have
been shrinking for decades because of mi-
gration to big cities. Since 2011 the national
population has been falling, too. Last year
it shrank by 450,000. The two trends are
emptying rural areas: whereas Japan as a
whole is projected to lose 16% of its popula-
tion between 2015 and 2045, the population
of Aomori prefecture, where Imabetsu is
located, will plunge 37%, reckons the Na-
tional Institute of Population and Social
Security Research (nipssr), a think-tank inTokyo (see chart on next page).
The numbers tell only part of the story.
Locals who move away, who account for
around two-thirds of the 150 people Ima-
betsu has lost since Mr Nakajima took of-
fice, are predominantly young people seek-
ing education or work. (Jobs in Imabetsu
are mainly in farming and fishing.) Youto
Komura, a 27-year-old who works at the
town hall, says only six of the 40 people he
went to school with still live in Imabetsu.
Only one of the four children of Mr Naka-
jima, who worked in a sewing shop and
flower shop before becoming mayor, re-
mains; the others are in Tokyo, Sapporo
and Aomori city.
Women leave in greater numbers thanmen, says Hiroya Masuda, the author of an
alarming report on rural depopulation.
“There is a glass ceiling for women every-
where, but in rural areas it tends to be made
of thick steel,” he says. “In offices in rural
areas they tend to be pouring tea, while in
Tokyo there is more chance of fulfilling
jobs.” Young men who might otherwise
stick around are put off by the lack of po-
tential brides.
This movement of young people, and
Japan’s long and lengthening life expectan-
cy, has led to an extraordinary preponder-
ance of old people in far-flung places. Some
37% of those living in depopulated areas
are over the age of 65, about ten percentage
points more than the national rate, accord-
ing to the government. Imabetsu has the
accolade of being the town with the highest
proportion of over-65s in Aomori: they are
already around half the population.
Because baby-boomers are starting to
die off, the depopulation of rural areas is
set to spike, reckons Shiro Koike of the
nipssr. In 2014 Mr Masuda predicted that
896 of Japan’s 1,700 municipalities would
be extinct by 2040. He has now revised that
to 929. In the five years to 2016, by the gov-
ernment’s count, 190 places disappeared
from the map (although a handful of those
were emptied by the earthquake, tsunami
and nuclear disaster of 2011).
The impact of the dwindling population
in rural areas is clear to see. Imabetsu has
no supermarkets and no restaurants, cafésRural JapanOld, shrinking and broke
IMABETSU
The burden of an ageing and declining population is felt most keenly
in the countrysideAsia
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