"Leaving for Marriage and Childcare" Intensified Female Population Outflow from Japanese Manufacturing Cities

Toyama Prefecture Likely to Drop Below 1 Million Population Soon
Increasing Corporate Investment Faces Labor Shortage Challenges
Last Year's Female Population Outflow Twice That of Males

Similar to South Korea, Japan is facing a serious low birthrate problem, and there are urgent calls for measures to address the severe population outflow in regions where economic activities are based on manufacturing. In particular, it is diagnosed that the perception that "manufacturing jobs make it difficult to take maternity and childcare leave" is leading to the outflow of female population, especially as office jobs with a high proportion of women are concentrated in major cities like Tokyo.

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on the 30th, the population of Toyama Prefecture in Japan was recorded at 1,007,100 as of the 1st of last month. As of October last year, it was 1,017,000, ranking 37th among the 43 prefectures nationwide, but the population decreased by 0.9% in the past 11 months.

Considering the average monthly population decline of about 840 people over the past year, it is expected that the population will fall below the 1 million mark within the next year. This would be the first time since 1949 that Toyama Prefecture's population drops below 1 million.

Toyama Prefecture has attracted large factories with cheap electricity secured through hydroelectric power and has achieved economic growth based on manufacturing industries such as chemicals including pharmaceuticals, electronic components, and machinery. Looking at the prefectural income, which indicates the income level by region in Japan, Toyama ranked 5th among all prefectures in 2020, following Tokyo and others, in terms of per capita income.

Recently, there have been successive new and expanded factory investments by large companies in Toyama Prefecture. Fujifilm Toyama Chemical is building a new factory with an investment of about 60 billion yen (approximately 540 billion KRW), and Kokusai Electric, a semiconductor manufacturing equipment company, is investing 24 billion yen in a new factory. Sumitomo Electric Industries is also planning to build a semiconductor materials factory in the region.

Accordingly, the proportion of the population engaged in manufacturing in Toyama Prefecture is high. According to last year's Basic Survey on Employment Structure, 25.3% of workers in Toyama Prefecture were employed in manufacturing, exceeding the national average by more than 9 percentage points. Among production process workers working in factories, the proportion was 20.8%, the highest level among all prefectures nationwide.

The problem is that although Japanese companies have decided to invest in this region, it is not easy to find workers for local factories. In fact, the effective job opening-to-application ratio in August was 1.59 in Toyama Prefecture, ranking sixth highest among all prefectures. This year's minimum wage was 948 yen, 15 yen higher than the neighboring Ishikawa Prefecture.

This labor shortage has emerged amid a massive concentration of workers in Tokyo, accelerating the phenomenon of regional extinction. Nihon Keizai pointed out, "This shows that the chronic labor shortage continues," adding, "While factory construction is positive for the economy, the challenge is whether a continuous supply of labor can be maintained."

Local governments are focusing on securing new corporate investments, but there are concerns that attracting new factories might instead drain the workforce. Therefore, opinions have been raised that support should be provided to help existing factories in the region secure workers.

Toyama Prefecture is paying attention to the fact that this population outflow is mainly occurring among young women. A survey of the outflow population aged 15 to 34 last year showed that 1,693 men and 3,698 women left, a difference of 2.2 times. The number of women aged 20 to 24 who graduated from university and found employment has maintained around 2,000 annually since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.

Locally, this phenomenon is interpreted as being caused by the image that female university graduates find it difficult to take maternity or childcare leave in companies with many production sites. Another view is that even if they work in other industries, if they find a marriage partner locally, they are likely to meet manufacturing workers who practically cannot take childcare leave, prompting them to leave the prefecture.

Considering these points, Nihon Keizai reported that companies need to create an atmosphere where childcare-related leave can be easily used and diversify job types. Professor Kazuyuki Nakamura of Toyama University said, "It would be effective to create business models that pour know-how not only into manufacturing but also into research and development, consulting, and marketing to prevent population outflow."