Unfortunately, Kumamoto seems to be the home of the poorest region in Japan. The Kuma area is beautiful but I guess the natural beauty of the area doesn’t necessarily help people earn money.
“The Gini coefficient for them rose from 0.083 to 0.088, and the difference in the average income between the highest ranking, Minato Ward in Tokyo, and the poorest, Kuma village in Kumamoto Prefecture, jumped from 4.7-fold to 6.5-fold.”
I think that the average age of the residents is a factor here. When young people leave a rural area in order to move to an urban area, it leaves a higher proportion of elderly people, who tend to have very modest incomes. If you click on the following link, you’ll find a chart comparing the age distribution in Kuma Village with that of Japan as a whole (the graph on the left side of the page). The graph shows that the age distribution in Kuma Village is heavily skewed to right (the elderly).
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ファイル:Demography43513.svg
Here’s a map showing the location of Kuma Village:
Posted by Kirk
