I graduated from the College of Letters of Ritsumeikan University in 1989. After working for a company, I studied at two graduate schools, receiving an M.A. in literature from the University of Warwick in 1994 and an M.A. in international relations from Ritsumeikan University in 1996. I studied in Denmark for one year as a DC1 fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and as a Danish government-sponsored student, and after returning to Japan, received a Ph.D. in sociology from Ritsumeikan University in 1999.

I was also sent to the Danish National Institute of Social Research in Denmark under JSPS’ RRA overseas research fellowship program and after completing the two-year fellowship, returned to Japan and took the present post in 2003. As a visiting scholar, I stayed at the Centre for Welfare State Research of the University of Southern Denmark from October 2010 to March 2011 and from May to September 2022.

I am studying gender issues in the Nordic countries with advanced welfare systems through an international comparative approach. In these countries, there still remains a gender imbalance in terms of childcare services, which I hypothesize is due to the care support system that is principally designed for co-parenting, not single parenting. Following a comparative study of the lives of single mothers and welfare policies in Japan, the U.S., Denmark and Korea, I am now exploring the issue of sustainability of gender equality and welfare society, focusing on the problems that face female caregivers with children in Denmark and Iceland.

In recent years, the Nordic countries, like East Asian countries, are experiencing the impact of a declining birthrate and aging population. In this light, I am studying the situations of the Nordic countries from the viewpoint of East Asia. Policy science is a discipline that studies micro topics from a comprehensive and macro perspective in the context of social dynamics, such as neo-liberalization, globalization and digitalization. In this sense, I believe it is not appropriate to exclusively focus on the welfare system of a single country from the beginning.

I teach “Social Welfare Policies: Gender in Welfare Societies,” “Comparative Studies of Welfare Societies,” and “Social Welfare Policies” to undergraduate students and “Social Welfare Policy” to graduate students. I have also led students’ groups in three fieldwork trips to Denmark as part of the “Policy Practice Forum” seminar.

While welfare is often seen as a special service to help socially vulnerable people, it is designed, in fact, to ensure happy lives for all people, whether vulnerable or not. The study of welfare policy aims to consider social measures to contribute to individual happiness, but doing so requires understanding people’s diverse needs.

It is often said that for welfare, practice is more important than theory. The study of welfare policy is a discipline that cannot be learned through textbooks alone: it is a discipline that explores practical measures to enhance individual happiness in the future, while recognizing diverse needs of individuals. At the Graduate School of Policy Science, students are offered unique opportunities to study welfare policy both from theoretical and practical perspectives in a well-balanced manner. As is known, the Japanese-style welfare society is no longer sustainable. If you are interested in exploring how you can live a happy life when you start a family or when you become old, please consider joining us at the Graduate School of Policy Science.

Welfare policy, gender equality policy, care work, Nordic countries, support for family caregivers, sustainability of welfare society