Hometown Blues: Japanese Teens in Regional Areas Feel Future is Limited

A growing number of regional municipalities are feeling the demographic crunch of declining and aging populations and migration of residents to large urban centers, with many struggling to keep functioning. In April 2024, the Population Strategy Council  published a forecast predicting that 744, or more than 40% of the 1,729 municipalities in Japan, could disappear in the next 30 years.

The Nippon Foundation carried out a survey in fall 2024 of teenagers aged 17 to 19 asking their impressions of the town where they lived when they were 15. The survey involved 4,700 respondents from all of Japan’s 47 prefectures who were divided into groups of 100 individuals. Around 90% of participants from both the three major metropolitan centers of Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka and regional areas responded that where they lived was “familiar and comfortable,” indicating most had an attachment to their hometowns.

However, there was a gap of some 20 percentage points when participants were asked if they feel they can live a fulfilling life in the areas where they are from, with 91.9% in the central areas of the three major metropolises saying yes, but only 72.5% in outer regional areas expressed the same sentiment. This divide became even more pronounced for factors like options for cram schools and extracurricular activities, and prospects for the future. In the case of options for the future, 80.1% of respondents in the three major metropolitan areas felt they had a wide range of choices, more than double the 37.7% of individuals from regional areas who gave positive answers.

Asked whether they would like to live in the same prefecture they did when they were 15, three-quarters of both young men and women in urban centers areas indicated they did, while only around half of those in outer regional areas felt the same.

Respondents in Kanagawa lead their peers in wanting to live in the same prefecture as when they were 15, with 84 answering yes, followed by 77 in Osaka, and 76 in Tokyo. All the prefectures in the top 10 had designated cities, which under the Local Autonomy Act have greater authority than general municipalities, centered around the three major metropolitan areas. In contrast, Wakayama had the fewest yes responses with 41, while in the Kantō region, Ibaraki had the least with 47.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)