Regional Structure of the Electronic Parts Industry in the Kami-Ina District, Nagano Prefecture

This paper aims at an analysis of the industrial aspect of the regional structure in the case of the Kami-Ina district, Nagano Prefecture, Central Japan, where the electronic parts industry has been developed. The electronic parts industry is labor-intensive, depending much on cheaper labor force. Main factories usually contract a part of the manufacturing processes, mainly those of lower productivity, with many subcontract factories. In this respect, the arrangement of production organization becomes hierarchical, being composed of main factories, branch factories, subcontract factories and housewife-laborers. Spatially speaking, the hierarchical production organization forms a kind of circular structure, that is to say, some of the main factories or finished-goods factories are located in the central urban area of the region and some of the branch factories are located in the intermediate zone, whereas in the surrounding rural areas many subcontract factories are scattered. In respect to the structure of the labor force of the electronic parts industry in this region, female laborers are more numerous than male ones in almost all factories. The larger the scale of the factory is, the younger female laborers work and the smaller the scale of the factory is, the more the housewife-laborers work. Almost all of those who work at home are housewives. In respect to the relationship between the factories and the farm villages, it can be said that larger-scale factories located in the central urban area gather younger laborers from the surrounding farm villages. Small-scale subcontract factories located in the rural areas gather housewife-laborers from smaller farm. In many cases, the seasonal housewife-laborers from larger farms are not employed by small-scale subcontract factories in the rural area.Compared with villages on the terrace of the Tenryu River, the farm villages below the terrace tend to draw more housewife-laborers, of more aged generation in general, for food and wooden-ware industries, decreasing the number of employies in electronic parts industry.