To respond to local extinction, South Korea, under the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, identified depopulated areas in 2021 and launched the Local Extinction Response Fund in 2022. However, due to its early stage of implementati...
To respond to local extinction, South Korea, under the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, identified depopulated areas in 2021 and launched the Local Extinction Response Fund in 2022. However, due to its early stage of implementation, analyzing the characteristics and changes of policy response to local extinction at the central government level remains a challenge. In contrast, Japan, facing similar issues of local extinction as South Korea, has established a robust central government-led response system based on the Regional Revitalization Act and the Comprehensive Strategy and Basic Policy on Community-Population-Job Creation. Hence, this study examines Japan's policy responses to local extinction by analyzing the first and second periods of the Comprehensive Strategy and Basic Policy on Community-Population-Job Creation. For the analysis, topic modeling was employed to enhance text analysis efficiency and accuracy, complemented by expert interviews for validation. The results revealed that the first-period strategy's topics encompassed economy and society, start-up, local government, living condition, service, and industry. Meanwhile, the second-period strategy's topics included resource, the New Normal, woman, digital transformation, industry, region, public-private partnership, and population. The analysis highlights that the policy target, policy direction, and environmental change significantly influenced these policy shifts.