Centralization in Tokyo Obvious Again

Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications released a report on the moves of Japanese population in 2024, based on the basic resident registration system. Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture was the greatest embracer of the people moving in among 47 prefectures. It is likely that the trend of decentralization, caused by avoidance of connecting each other in the time of COVID-19, has been finished.

According to the Population Transfer Report released in January, 2.52 million people moved beyond prefectural borders within Japan in 2024. Japan also accepted 735 thousand people from foreign countries in the same year, as 371 thousand left Japan. While the people going out of Japan exceeded the number of those coming in at the time of 2021, the influx of foreign people is increasing every year in post-COVID period.

 

Tokyo, the third geographically smallest prefecture in Japan, accepted 461 thousand people from other prefectures in Japan and 143 thousand from foreign countries. Counting outgoers and some unidentified people in, the metropolitan prefecture increased 140 thousand of people in 2024. It is the greater in number than 116 thousand in 2023. In return, Fukushima, Aomori and Niigata were the top three prefectures which reduced its population. In comparison with the previous year, Ishikawa reduced the most in 2024, supposedly due to the great earthquake occurred the new year day of 2024.

 

It is remarkable that the newcomers to Tokyo are relatively young. Over 80 thousand people came in Tokyo were between the age of 20 and 24. Female newcomers exceeded male. Those tendency indicates that young agers and women are likely to choose to go to Tokyo, seeking better job opportunity or higher education rather than remaining in their local hometown.

 

The data showed that the moves of the people got revitalized as infectious disease was settled down. In the time of COVID-19, it was not easy for the people to work in an office together. The employers recommended their workers to work not in the office but home. Remote work became a new standard in every office. It promoted demographic move from Tokyo to other area in Japan. But the end of pandemic brought them back to Tokyo.

 

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba upholds decentralization policy named Local Revitalization 2.0. In his policy speech in current ordinary session of the Diet, Ishiba proposed “Reiwa Version of Remodeling Japanese Archipelago,” to draw the potentiality of local communities with support of national government. He hoped that the local cities would be chosen by young people and women.

 

As far as seeing the result of demographic survey, the local revitalization has not been successful, in spite of a decade-long effort by the national government. One of the reasons why women choose working in Tokyo was because the gap of salary between man and woman is narrower in Tokyo than in local cities. It is likely that local offices pay more for man than for woman. It is also necessary for the government to urge cultural change in local communities.