The Consequences of Hometown Regiment: What Happened in Hometown When the Soldiers Never Returned?

Kentaro Asai and Ryo Kambayashi ()

No 743, Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: Sometimes, war results in a large gender imbalance in certain cohorts and areas that changes the path of economic development. However, there is ambiguity around this notion because the market economy has a strong restoring force. This study contributes to the existing literature by presenting the Japanese experience during the Second World War. Japan lost approximately 2 million soldiers during 1938-1945. Furthermore, the loss of young males concentrated in certain cohorts of certain geographical areas owing to hometown regiment system. By exploiting the variation of changes in gender balance cohort-by-prefecture, we examined the effect of the loss of young males on the post-war industrial structure. We observed that the reduction in the gender ratio may have led to slower industrialization, although to a limited extent quantitatively.

Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2023-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/79879/DP743.pdf

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:hituec:743

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