Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosyste ...

segment at about 800,000. According to the 2012 employment status survey conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the most commonly cited reason for retirement from self-employed business was illness and old age (40.4%), followed by concerns or anxiety over the future (12.3%).⁴⁶

Region and population size have an influence on the types of micro-businesses one finds in Japan. Examining the quantity of business establishments in various municipalities shows that in terms of the number of small-sized business establishments per 1,000 residents, there are more in large cities for business types such as information and communications, professional and technical services, wholesale trade, real estate, and medical, health care, and welfare industries. However, micro-businesses focused on construction, retail trade, and personal-care industries such as barber shops and laundries are more common in rural areas, and this is the pattern that I have observed in my research in Tōhoku, which certainly contributes to the fact that most of my entrepreneurial interlocutors are those who have developed retail businesses. Interestingly, small businesses in rural areas tend to last longer than in large cities and it appears that countryside areas in general tend to have small businesses that manage to operate over long periods of time and micro-businesses in rural areas tend to account for higher percentages of total wages and numbers of employees than in urban areas. In short, there is a significant divide between the nature and importance of micro-businesses between regions defined as rural and urban within Japan.

One of the more interesting aspects of the 2016 White Paper on SMEs is its brief discussion of micro-businesses and working environments for women.⁴⁷ The report notes that women tend to choose smaller businesses when they look for work after a break for childbirth and child-rearing, rather than looking for work in a larger company. Women also are likely to work for longer periods for small businesses with fewer than five employees. These points suggest that micro-businesses may offer flexible options for both recruitment and working environments for some