Household Context, Socioeconomic Status, and Migration in Early Modern Northeastern Japan

Satomi Kurosu, Reitaku University
Hao Dong, Peking University

This paper examines how the socioeconomic status of the household (property) and household context (power) influenced individual departure from and return to the communities in early modern northeastern Japan, and compares the patterns between regular and hard times. Property and power were two important dimensions in explaining the demographic differentials or similarities among communities studied in the Eurasian Population and Family History Project (EAP). Derived from the same conceptual framework, we analyze a newly expanded dataset of Japanese local population registers called ‘ninbetsu-aratame-cho' (NAC) from 1716-1870. The NAC provides us a rare opportunity to study historical migration patterns as it contains detailed information about the timing, reasons, and origins/destinations specific to each migration of an individual, which are hard to obtain in the sources of historical demographic studies. This study adds to the findings of the EAP by extending research to migration outcomes, introducing other external stress such as famines/mortality crisis, and adding a spatial dimension to the analysis. We will show that property indeed mattered to shaping labor migration at the time of local economic hardship. But the way men and women migrated in response to crisis varied by their demographic characteristics and household context, which further differed according to their origins and destinations.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 158. Inequality, Economic Stress, and Demographic Behavior: Sub-Session 1. Balancing Economic Stress in the Pre-Modern World.