Trends in internal migration in Japan, 2012–2020: The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

In the past 10 years or so, there have been growing concerns in Japan that migration trends, such as large in‐migration to the Tokyo metropolitan area (TMA) at the national scale and large movements from the suburbs to the centres at the metropolitan scale, have widened the core–periphery disparities at each scale under national population decline. However, the COVID‐19 pandemic led to unexpected changes in these migration patterns, such as a weakened population concentration in the TMA. This study aims to examine internal migration trends from 2012, on axes of core–periphery in Japan and centre–suburbs in metropolitan areas, and the changes in the migration patterns caused by the pandemic in 2020. First, we prepared intermunicipal origin–destination tables by estimating the suppressed flows in 2012–2020 using the iterative proportional fitting technique, and then we calculated the net migration and migration efficiency indices based on seven area types: centre and suburbs of the TMA, centres and suburbs of major metropolitan areas, centres and suburbs of other metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan areas. The results indicate that the 2020 migration efficiency in the centre of the TMA drastically dropped to the lowest level during the study period, contrasting with an upward trend in 2012–2019. The pandemic strongly affected the migration patterns from/to and within the TMA, with much net gain in the suburbs from the centre, but the impact of migration efficiencies among the other areas was minimal. These findings can help in providing direction for the postpandemic policy challenge of spatial planning in Japan, for example, the weakened but still widening disparities between the TMA and the other regions and the renewed threat of urban sprawl caused by the increased migration from the centre to the suburbs within the TMA.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in persistent changes in the patterns of internal population movements in Latin American countries

“…Primarily the pandemic is believed to have trigger movements away from large cities to sparsely populared areas, including suburban, coastal and rural locations (Rowe, González-Leonardo, and Champion 2023). Consistent findings have been reported from the United States (Ramani and Bloom 2021), the United Kingdom Wang et al 2022), Spain (González-Leonardo et al 2022González-Leonardo, Rowe, and Fresolone-Caparrós 2022), Germany (Stawarz et al 2022), Sweden (Vogiazides and Kawalerowicz 2022), Norway (Tønnessen 2021), Australia (Perales and Bernard 2022) and Japan (Fielding and Ishikawa 2021;Kotsubo and Nakaya 2022). In the United States, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Japan the predominant pattern was net migration losses in large cities during 2020 but increases in their suburban areas.…”

Virtual special issue: Internal migration in times of COVID‐19

“…Results reveal that the increasing number of internal migrants from Tokyo headed to prefectures within the TMR and regions further away which are known to be touristy and mountainous areas with many second homes belonging to Tokyoites. Kotsubo and Nakaya (2022) The decline in the intensity of internal migration during the pandemic have caused minor change in the spatial structure of migration, despite small growth in pre-existing net losses in some capital cities due to increasing outflows, such as the Melbourne Metropolitan Area, and a decrease in negative net rates in regional areas of certain states driven by a decrease in out-migration, for instance, in Western Australia. Growths in net losses in the capital cities were concentrated among working age groups of 25-64 years old and, to a lesser extent, among populations aged 15-24.…”

“…Kotsubo and Nakaya (2022) also used register data to explore the impact of the pandemic on internal migration in Japan during 2020, compared to the period 2012–2019, but they focus the analysis on net migration rates and levels of migration effectiveness between core cities and suburbs. Results indicate that migration efficiency in the city of Tokyo drastically dropped during 2020 to the lowest level from 2012, contrasting with an upward trend between 2012 and 2019.…”

“Urban Exodus” During COVID-19 in Mexico? Using Digital Data to Analyze Medium-Term Pandemic Impacts on Internal Population Movements

“…The COVID-19 pandemic also altered patterns of internal population movements across the rural-urban hierarchy in the Global North (Rowe et al 2023b). An increase of movements from large cities to less densely populated areas, unusual population growth in the former, and a decline of urbanization flows were documented in the United States (Ramani and Bloom 2021), United Kingdom (Rowe et al 2023a;Wang et al 2022), Spain (González-Leonardo et al 2022;González-Leonardo et al 2022a and2022b), Germany (Stawarz et al 2022), Sweden (Vogiazides and Kawalerowicz 2022), Norway (Tønnessen 2021), Australia (Perales and Bernard 2022), and Japan (Fielding and Ishikawa 2021;Kotsubo and Nakaya 2022). Tourist towns with a high concentration of second homes were popular destinations, suggesting that wealthy individuals played a key role in movements away from large cities during the pandemic (González-Leonardo et al 2022a and2022b;Vogiazides and Kawalerowicz 2022;Rowe et al 2023b).…”