The Survey on the Working Condition of Rural Areas after the Bubble Economy

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We investigated the actual conditions of the agriculture of two villages in Ina district. This was the third survey after researching the same area in 1977 and 1989. The subject of this survey was to find out what conditions farming management and farmers' families were, including whether or not they are full-time or side-job farmers and what conditions their social security was. We compared and analyzed surveys at three points in time and were able to clarify the changes over time.The basic trend, long-term decline in agriculture, seems to have had no big change. However, we found some minor and subtle changes in farmers' families. This new change is due to the economic slump and serious unemployment.It seems that in the rural labor market, a sort of " dissolution" has begun , though the rural labor market used to be a closed one. "Inner closed completion wall" in the rural labor market is coming loose. By researching the details of farmers' families ,their labor and the farming management, we traced the change and confirmed its meaning and degree of the change.There are two flows of work force in the labor market :from agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector and from non- agricultural sector to agricultural sector. The former has had a steady flow for a long time, but recently the latter has slightly taken off. We could say that there has relatively been a flow back to agricultural districts from other cities. We also analyzed whether the new flow back to agricultural district had a effective role boosting the rural economy and society, and easing serious nemployment. Furthermore , we verified whether the agricultural district played the role of "shock absorber" for unemployment. Beyond that, we researched two types of agricultural newcomers. One is ex-workers from other cities. The other is workers who have lived in the district and commute to the work place. We also checked the effectiveness and the