Japan will be able to teach New Zealand about dealing with rural population decline

I've written a number of times about population decline in New Zealand's rural and peripheral areas (see here and here and here and here). New Zealand has seen a period of significant population growth driven by historically high net international migration. That might have been enough to turn around the fortunes of some previously-declining areas (although we won't know for sure until the delayed Census results are released), mainly through internal migration out of the larger cities (or, at least, that has been the main source of positive population change when it has occurred for those areas). However, the reprieve is likely to be short-lived as we return to more 'normal' net international migration. So, what is a declining region to do?

The Maxim Institute released a report in 2017 that made some suggestions (which I blogged about here). However, New Zealand is not the first country to face population decline in rural and peripheral areas. Japan is the poster child for population decline, and as one indicator of its ageing and declining population, consider this: Japan has been closing hundreds of schools each year over the past decade or more. The scary thing is that New Zealand's outlying regions are ageing rapidly, as Natalie Jackson and I pointed out in a 2017 article in the Journal of Population Ageing (ungated earlier version here).

What can Japan teach us about how to deal with declining regional populations? Last year, Brendan Barrett (RMIT University) wrote an interesting article in The Conversation on Japan's decline:

Everyone in Japan is aware of the challenges posed by a rapidly ageing, declining population with low birth rates. The media cover these concerns extensively.

Local governments have been trying to encourage people to move back to rural areas by providing work opportunities and sharing details of vacant houses...

There are no simple answers to these challenges. The Japanese government has been very active but past policies have tended to focus on infrastructure development and construction of public facilities (roads, dams, town halls, libraries, museums, sport facilities), rather than on the economic needs and welfare of local people...

While lots of ongoing initiatives aim to attract young people back to rural areas, the biggest concern is one of livelihoods as long-term job prospects are limited. Yuusuke Kakei covers this topic in his 2015 book Population Decline x Design, presenting proposals for new local economic activity that puts women, creativity and community at the centre. To this we should add what Joseph Coughlin describes as “The Longevity Economy” to respond to the economic and technology needs of an ageing population.

Interest in the notion of the universal basic income has also surged recently in Japan. Some commentators argue that it could play a significant role in revitalising Japan and in making rural life more attractive to young Japanese by providing them with long-term financial security.

One major challenge for local economies is access to finance, especially to support new businesses. While there are several innovative crowdfunding initiatives, Japanese municipalities should also look at the Transition Town movement for inspiration with its focus on “reclaiming the economy, sparking entrepreneurship, reimagining work”.

Specifically, it is worth exploring the potential of local entrepreneur forums. These bring together local investors from within the towns or villages with local entrepreneurs to support new, small business ventures.

The result is that communities pool their resources to support young people who have business ideas but lack financial resources. This is in line with both Masuda’s and Kakei’s recommendations to focus on local needs, rather than physical buildings and infrastructure.

Most of the initiatives highlighted by Barrett seem a little too promissory and results are lacking. A universal basic income might even make the problem of rural population decline even worse, as it allows those who lack the necessary skills for an urban job the opportunity to afford to live in an urban area (taking a broad definition of urban). Anyway, if policymakers are concerned about population decline and want to develop policy to mitigate it, they we should be keeping a close eye on initiatives in Japan, noting what works and what doesn't work. Although there will be important cultural differences to take note of, Japan is leading the way here and we will not want to make mistakes that they have already uncovered.

Read more:

• The relative (un)certainty of subnational population decline
• The Maxim Institute on dealing with population decline
• Newsflash! Population growth will be highest on the fringes of fast-growing urban areas
• Winners and losers in population growth
• Forget 'zombie towns', there's entire 'zombie districts' coming to a rural area near you