Shrinking Japan and Regional Variations: Along the Sannyodo

Taking the Goki-Shichido (Five Home Provinces and Seven Circuits of Ancient Japan) as a theoretical framework, this book examines shrinking Japan from a regional variation perspective by municipality along the ancient Sannyodo, which comprises eight provinces and four prefectures today. The book identifies the principal explanatory factors based on the small area data of e-Stat through GPS statistical software tools such as G-census and EvaCva, within a historical perspective. This historical knowledge helps in understanding the significance of the regional cultural heritage that remains in each municipality today. The book pays special attention to municipal variations within the same prefecture, presenting a completely unique approach from what other researchers have pursued.

This book studies two present-day prefectures along the ancient Sannyodo for detailed analyses of the impacts of regional variations of population decline in Japan. They are Hiroshima Prefecture, made up of the former Bingo and Aki provinces, and Yamaguchi Prefecture, formed by the ancient provinces of Suo and Nagato. The reasons for selecting these two prefectures of ancient Sannyodo are twofold. First, they are made up of a multiple number of the ancient provinces. Second, other prefectures that fall under the Sannyodo have been studied in the previous works of the present author by adopting the same methods of analyses. Thus, by presenting unique analyses of regional variations on small municipal levels in Hiroshima and Yamaguchi prefectures along the Sannyodo, this book offers suggestions for effective regional policy to revitalize shrinking Japan to a sustainable one.

Fumie Kumagai (Ph.D.) is a professor emeritus of Kyorin University in Tokyo. She holds an American doctorate in sociology with extensive experiences in the West as a student, a college professor, and the researcher. Her overseas experience affords her a unique cross-cultural perspective in the field of families and demography, social issues, and intercultural communication. Her major interest is in regional variations on Japanese population, families, and socio-cultural characteristics based on municipality, but not by prefecture, or Japan by any means. She has published 30 volumes of books and monographs in Japanese and/or English, including the one forthcoming. Of them, her sole-authored books in English include Unmasking Japan Today: The Impact of Traditional Values on Modern Japanese Society (1996, Prager), Families in Japan: Changes, Continuities, and Regional Variations (2008, University Press of America), Family Issues on Marriage, Divorce, andOlder Adults in Japan: With Special Attention to Regional Variations (2015, Springer), Municipal Power and Population Decline in Japan: Goki-Shichido and Regional Variations (2020, Springer), Shrinking Japan and Regional Variations: Along the Hokurikudo and the Tosando, I and II (2021, Springer), Shrinking Japan and Regional Variations: Along the Tokaido (2023, Springer), Shrinking Japan and Regional Variations: Along the Sannyodo (forthcoming, Springer), and numerous numbers of refereed articles in such journals as Journal of Family History, Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, and Victimology.