Population changes and economic conditions in Tokugawa Japan
Changes in population size in TokugawaJapan (1603—1868) can be characterized by three phases: rapid growth in the seventeenth century, stabilization in the eighteenth century, and moderate increase in the nineteenth century.
The rapid growth of the seventeenth century is argued to have been due to sharp increases in population in all regions of the country, whereas the stabilization of the eighteenth century was a consequence of two contrasting changes: population decline in the northeast and population growth in the southwest.2 Japan's population again started to increase gradually in the early nineteenth century and picked up speed after the 1850s, and was accompanied by economic development throughout the country (Hayami 1986: 316—17).Little direct evidence exists concerning economic conditions in seventeenth-century Japan. However, existing studies suggest that, as judged from real wages in farming villages, economic conditions in some parts of rural Tokugawa Japan seem to have been improving from the early eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. For example, according to Saito (1998: 25—31), the average real wages of agricultural day-labourers in eastern and central Japan increased throughout the eighteenth century until they started to decline in the 1820s. Hayami and Kito (2004) also point out that the real wages of servants in farming households in central Japan rose in the eighteenth century.3 Further, Hayami (1985: 91—2) has argued that the
northeast experienced the beginnings of the commercialization of agriculture in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
On the other hand, Japan experienced a number of widespread crop failures and famines in the eighteenth and early nineteeth centuries, of which the largest were the Kyoho famine (1732—3), the Tenmei famine (1782—7), and the Tempo famine (1833—8). In the mid-1750s, the Horeki famine also caused widespread damage to rice crops in the northeastern region (Hayami 2001: 47—9).
Before recovering from the damages caused by the Horeki famine, the region was devastated by the Tenmei famine in the 1780s, which according to historical evidence was by far the most serious famine recorded in early modern Japan (Narimatsu 1985: 199—200). Half a century later, in the 1830s, the region was again hit by another large-scale famine known as the Tempo famine, which was the last major famine in the Tokugawa period.In summary, the evidence on economic conditions in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century rural Japan is somewhat contradictory. As seen from changes in average real wages in farming villages, the economy appears to have developed and economic conditions to have improved in the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries. On the other hand, however, a series of widespread famines must have had a negative effect on the standard of living in the agrarian villages. For northeastern Japan in particular there is no clear evidence suggesting that real wages in agriculture increased, while a great deal of evidence exists to indicate that the region was affected seriously by the series of large- scale famines. Overall, unlike the central and eastern regions, economic conditions in northeastern Japan in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries do not seem to have improved dramatically, and this economic ‘stagnation’ may have been responsible in part for the population decline in the region.
2.2