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Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to examine the pros and cons among Japanese youth of their positive attitudes towards their non-metropolitan hometowns. They wish to have a relaxing life with their families and friends in the hometowns. However, they end up with limited job opportunities by the very relationship.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to examine Japanese youth and their increasing positive attitudes (地元志向) towards their non-metropolitan hometowns. Japan’s low birth rate and aging population is leading to a crisis which endangers local municipalities to disappear. In recent years, however, the Japanese youth in non-metropolitan areas are reluctant to out-migrate to and reside in metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya. Instead, they prefer to live with parents until marriage, graduation, or other life events.

Japanese youth’s preference to remain in their hometowns has become more feasible with the innovations of infrastructure and growth of entertainment industry in non-metropolitan areas since the 2000s. This change satisfies local Japanese youth’s lifestyles. For example, they can possess their own vehicles for personal use; this modern lifestyle allows them the leisure to spend time with their friends unlike their counterparts, struggling in cities.

Contrarily, this “consummatory” lifestyle, aspired by the local youth, may only be sustainable by the support of their parents. Due to the fact that non-metropolitan areas both lack profit and job opportunities, the youth are faced with difficulties sustaining their life without their parental aid. Particularly, local youth with low academic attainment often obtain jobs only through local connections and then are limited to precarious employment. Their local networks assign them to certain types of work, such as construction and elderly care. Thus, the consummatory lifestyle of the local youth appears to be fragile.