can be seen in “to attend school” (males: 4.1%, females: 2.3%), “for work-related reasons” (males: 17.9%, females: 8.3%), “to accompany a family member(s)” (males: 9.2%, females: 15.0%), and “change in marital status” (males: 12.3%, females: 18.5%). Marked differences between males and females emerge among people migrating from different prefectures, however. Although there are no significant differences among those who moved for “housing-related reasons,” considerable differences can be observed for the reasons “to attend school” (males: 15.8%, females: 10.7%), “for work-related reasons” (males: 49.7%, females: 18.1%), “family-related reasons” (males: 5.5%, females: 8.1%), “to accompany a family member(s)” (males: 9.1%, females: 29.9%), and “change in marital status” (males: 3.7%, females: 13.9%). The data of migration from foreign countries should be analyzed with caution because the size of samples is small. Approximately 65% of the reasons given for migration from foreign countries is “for work-related reasons” in case of male respondents, while approximately 30% of the female respondents stated “to accompany a family member(s)” as the reason for migration.

## V Return (U-turn) Migration to Prefectures of Birth

“U-turn migration” has been widely used in Japan as an expression meaning return migration. In this section, we observe the state of U-turn migration (with the individual’s prefecture of birth as the starting point) by following relatively simple migration patterns based on prefectural-level data, i.e., migration process (migration experience at the time of important life events) between the prefecture of birth and the prefecture of present residence. In other words, the cases where the birthplace and the present residence are within the same prefecture are defined as U-turn migration if the respondents had at some time out-migrated to other prefectures. Conversely, the cases where the prefectures of birth and present residence differ are treated as I-turn migration, i.e., out-migration from the birth prefecture to other prefectures. This means that the definition of U-turn migration used here is not limited to cases where people who migrated from non-metropolitan areas to metropolitan areas return to their prefectures of birth as is often used.

Here, we give a broad overview of the

Table V-1 Percentage of Return Migration to Birth Prefecture: Household Heads and Spouses

Age	Total	Return Migration Rate ①	Return Migration Rate ②	Out-Migration Rate ①	Out-Migration Rate ②
Male
Total	8,601	34.1	16.8	65.9	32.4
0-29	592	19.2	11.3	80.8	47.6
30-34	680	36.0	17.5	64.0	31.2
35-39	710	29.6	15.9	70.4	37.9
40-44	745	32.9	18.5	67.1	37.7
45-49	756	40.8	21.0	59.2	30.6
50-54	830	41.0	21.6	59.0	31.1
55-59	1,113	41.2	20.9	58.8	29.9
60-64	888	37.4	17.9	62.6	30.0
65+	2,287	29.5	12.0	70.5	28.7
Female
Total	8,743	30.2	13.7	69.8	31.7
0-29	615	18.5	9.4	81.5	41.5
30-34	743	28.6	12.9	71.4	32.3
35-39	805	31.6	16.3	68.4	35.3
40-44	780	28.5	13.5	71.5	33.7
45-49	739	38.3	18.5	61.7	29.9
50-54	821	33.7	16.2	66.3	31.9
55-59	1,202	33.1	14.6	66.9	29.5
60-64	840	29.2	14.2	70.8	34.3
65+	2,198	28.8	11.1	71.2	27.3

* Total excludes age “unknown” and migration pattern “unknown.”