Japan has experienced population decline since 2010 and the situation is expected to become more severe after 2030 with forecasts indicating an expected 30% decline from 2005 to 2055. Many other developed countries such as Germany and Korea are also experiencing depopulation. These demographic changes are expected to affect society at many levels such as labour markets decline, increased tax burden to sustain pension systems, and economic stagnation. Little is known however about the impacts of population decline on man-made physical infrastructure, such as possible deterioration of current infrastructure or increased financial burden of sustaining it. Infrastructure can be classified into 3 categories: point-type (e.g. buildings), point-network type (e.g. water supply) and network type (e.g. road). The impact of depopulation may vary according to the type of infrastructure. Previous research in this area has been limited in scope (e.g. case studies conducted in a single city focusing on a single type of infrastructure) and method (e.g. most research in the topic has been qualitative). This thesis presents a new comprehensive study on the impacts of population decline on infrastructure in Japan, taking into account all types of infrastructure and using a quantitative approach. Data collection methods include interviews and two large scale questionnaire surveys, the first conducted with municipalities and the second, a stated preference survey, conducted with members of the public. The goal of sustainable development is relevant even in a depopulated society, and hence a sustainable development framework is applied to the analysis where social, economic, environmental and engineering impacts are investigated. The main findings indicate that some infrastructure impacts observed and reported in depopulated areas do not seem to be related to any population decline; moreover, the preferences of citizens for infrastructure development is very similar between depopulated areas and non-depopulated areas. The results also suggest that the premises of Barro’s overlapping generations model, very relevant to a discussion of intergenerational decision making and related sustainability, appear to be rejected in this context.

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Emigration from Britain has been extensively studied from central sources. Using material available in North-East Scotland, in conjunction with centrally-held records in Edinburgh and London, this thesis investigates the factors which prompted and sustained emigration from North-East Scotland in the period 1830-1880. Potential emigrants were supplied with information from a wide range of sources and in the first section we examine the value, for both the emigrant and the historian, of material contained in newspapers, published and private correspondence, emigrant guidebooks and periodicals. A large part of the newspaper publicity dealt with the provision of shipping, obviously a vital component in the organization of emigration - however strong an individual's desire to emigrate, it could be achieved only through the provision of vessels, which were usually under the control of a network of agents in a number of ports. Some attention is paid to shipping facilities, to the role of the developing railway network in assisting emigration, and to the activities of a number of shipping and emigration agents who operated in North-East Scotland in the nineteenth century. In consulting local sources to discover why emigration took place from North-East Scotland at this time, it becomes apparent that pauperism had only a minor role in provoking removals from this area. The movement was primarily a planned, positive exodus of small farmers and farm workers, whose hopes of independence through the acquisition of a piece of land had been eroded by changes in farming methods. Most possessed moderate capital, which they used to emigrate, in the hope of securing a better future abroad. A study of the destinations favoured by North-East emigrants confirms their preoccupation with the possession of land and also their relative affluence. Most chose to settle in British America, primarily because it seemed to meet most fully their desire for agricultural land: interest in the USA and in Australia was more sporadic, partly because these areas seemed to offer the farming emigrant nothing which could not be had in British America - the Australian climate was suspect, and publicity for both areas, unlike that for Canada, gave as much emphasis to non-agricultural as to farming opportunities. Furthermore, political antagonism to the USA discouraged extensive emigration, while the stigma of convict settlement hampered the movement to Australia. On the other hand, despite the drawback of distance, New Zealand attracted a significant number of North-East emigrants, thanks partly to its acceptable 'Scottish' society, along with good farming opportunities, both of which were promoted by a number of agents in the North-East. Agency activity was also the cause of much of the exodus from North-East Scotland to the West Indies in the 1830s, while family connections and a desire to invest in profitable coffee-planting enterprises led to a significant North-East involvement in Ceylon. Stress is laid on the personal motives and particular combinations of stimuli which prompted many emigrants to remove from North-East Scotland. We suggest that other similar regional studies might, taken together, reflect more accurately the character of British emigration as a whole than the generalizations in pentral sources which form the basis of many current interpretations of nineteenth-century emigration.

The salient points of this thesis are that: (a) social change is properly understood as a processual phenomenon manifested in patterns of everyday behaviour, and this requires a methodological focus on the ethnography of the small community; (b) the macro/micro dimensions of social change/everyday behaviour are integrated at the same level of' epistemological abstraction; (c) the position of Lewis as a peripheral area provides parameter of social and economic life on the island; (d) the social and economic development of Lewis is explained through a political economy perspective; (e) cohort analysis shows population to decline from a combination of migration and the adoption of other fertility-reducing social mechanisms, which produces the present demographic profile; (f) changes in crofting are based on an increase in the value of non-croft incomes and a change in the types of non-croft work; (g) the social organisation of the crofting village produced a system of over-lapping groups and cross-cutting ties to maximise mutual aid provisions and minimise risk and conflict, and this was predicated on the importance croft production once held for maintenance; (h) this local system of multiplex relationships was centred on the village as the largest unit relevant to croft production, only communicants produce island-wide sets of affiliations; (i) the changed relevance of crofting is now being matched by changes in interpersonal relationships that promote a decline in their multiplexity; (j) in the twentieth century migration has become a major fact of Lewis ethnography; (k) an island-wide local consciousness emerges from the social relevance of migrants to their local relationships, and exists despite the decline of an esoteric culture; (l) social change is an ethnographic phenomenon: migration is a process of change interrelated with other processes, none of which are discrete.

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This is a study of the process of labour migration from Turkey to the federal Republic of Germany. It is based on fieldwork carried out in the fRG. A major claim is made about methods, namely that in the study of urban societies, participant observation among a small group - the traditional approach of anthropology - can be fruitfully supplemented by a larger survey based on Questionnaire interviews. This is the approach of this study. At the core of it is a survey of 267 migrants in different towns and industries in the fRG. Migration is understood as a dynamic social process and the international labour migration emerges as an aspect of differential regional development. Within this framework migrants are seen as decision making individuals, negotiating two systems with conflicting expectations and pressures, those of Turkey and Germany. Their decisions are made with the help of their social networks which are based on kin, fellow-countrymen and friends. Empirically this thesis shows that labour migration is very selective and highly organized. Migrants work in low-skill, manual, low status positions that are left open by the indigenous population. Their positions in the labour and housing markets reflect their marginal positions and vulnerability. There is variation, however, within the migrant population. The variation appears as a result of differences in migrant ideology and such differences determine the migrants' plans for the future and their return to Turkey.

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