This is the first of three articles on aged returnees. Aged returnees are defined as those who are farm-householders or their spouses and re-establish their position in the community after they leave their previous work outside farming. They have received much attention these days as many of them take up farming, causing the ageing of the local agricultural labour force, and also as they may be able to perform important roles in the everyday activities of local communities.
The present paper is mainly concerned with the analysis of the recent trend of aged returning and its backgrounds. It was found from a preliminary study that the aged returning is a phenomenon promoted by the increase in part-time farming and also by the ageing of farming populations and the fanning labour force. This leads the authors to estimate that: (1) the number of aged returnees will rise in future; (2) their distribution will accompany local differentials as it has so far.
To follow this, forty-seven prefectures were classified into five typologies based on the recent trend, and Oita and Iwate prefectures were chosen for further investigation: the former having a long-established experience in aged returning, and the latter showing signs of an increase. The results show that: (1) most aged returnees leave their outside-work at the age of retirement and a high proportion of those who settle in the community engage in fanning This indicates that they present high po-tential for playing important roles in community activities; (2) the availability of employment oppor-tunities outside farming affects the numbers of aged returning, which is the cause for local differentials in its distribution.