● Professor at the Faculty of Global Communications of Doshisha University in Japan.
● Specialty: Women’s labor issues in the U.S. and Japan.
● Ph.D. of Graduate School of American Studies at Doshisha University
● Studied at the Graduate School of Sociology of the University of California, Santa Barbara
● Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Stanford University & Harvard University (2009-2010)
● Has served for various councils and committees related to gender equality and work/life balance.
● The first-year mentor/chaperone for TOMODACHI MetLife Women’s Initiative 2013 by the U.S. Embassy.
● Has been serving as coordinator for Kansai Economic Federation (Kankeiren)’s women’s empowerment program, supported by U.S. Consulate General Osaka.
● Publications & Co-translated Work:
- America RyuugakuenoShotai (or Your Beautiful College Life in America, SekaiShisosha, 2002)
- Danjo Kyodo no Shokubadukuri (or CreatingGender Equal Workplace, Minerva Publishing, 2004/2008)
- Saiko no Shokuba, (Minerva Publishing, 2012: The Great Workplace by Burchell and Robin, Jossey-Bass, 2011).
- Work-life Balance and Management (Minerva Publishing, 2017)
- KachisohatsuJidai no Jintekishigenkanri (or Human Resource Management in the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) Era, Minerva Publishing, 2018)

----------------------------------------- Keynote Speech Topic ------------------------------------------
A Solution and Challenge to Daycare Issues in Japan:
To Support the Working Parents' Rights

This research is to examine the solution and challenge to daycare issues in Japan. The daycare issue is a strong base, creating the platform whether mothers with children can go back to the workplace since gender segregation still lingers in the workplace as well as society. However, facing severe global competition and lower fertility rates over the decades, society is accommodating the working parents' needs to ease their childcare issues by shifting to more family-friendliness. This society is thus exploring a way to be more supportive by improving its work environment for the employees' work-life integration.
The government policy started to waive the tuition of pre-school education and daycare services as of October 1st, 2019, in addition to the current subsidies for the company-supported daycare centers, which are categorized daycare centers without authorization. In 2016, grassroots movements to demand municipal nurseries occurred, triggered by an individual's blog which blamed the lack of municipal daycare centers in Japan. Most of the people concerned were homemakers, who were potential workers but opted out of the workforce to prioritize their childrearing. They were disengaged in the workplace because of the lack of daycare centers and company support. They demanded the government to have municipal nurseries to admit more children, whose voices ignited the nation's consensus. The government was compelled to take a rapid action to establish daycare centers to take care of the children who were not admitted to the municipal daycare centers and were on the waiting list. The government's actions were to support working parents, as well as the employees who try to sustain their work-life. Company-supported daycare centers, as well as the tuition waiver of pre-school education and daycare services, are some of such desired methods to change the work environment.
The objective of this study is to overview these recent situations of the Japanese workplaces, focusing on daycare issues examining how this kind of government's initiatives influence the corporate world. The current situation with the government subsidies to support companies to create daycare centers were brought about in the wake of the grassroots movements and followed the waiver tuition of pre-school education/daycare centers. This trend has not yet to be scrutinized academically, thus the author considers it significant to shed a light to it. From the aspects of the government's policy, companies' actions and the situations of the daycare centers, this study addresses a solution and challenge to daycare issues in Japan to support the working parents' rights and improve their working conditions.