EA presents: Professor Keiko Hirao

Professor Keiko Hirao on The True Story of Gender Equality in Japan: Unexpected Consequences of Work and Family Policies

Keiko Hirao, Sophia University, Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies 

The Closing of the gender gap is finally making a serious political agenda in Japan as the government regards women as a vital source of economic growth. More and more women are encouraged to join the workforce, remain in the workforce, and advance higher on the career ladder. Hirao's talk will brief the historical background of this Womenomics, the economic argument for gender equality, and will examine the development and consequences of work and family policies in the last 35 years. How did they contradict each other yet merged into the series of policy packages against population and fertility decline? It will elucidate what is happening to the gender structure of the Japanese society.

Professor Keiko Hirao teaches at the Sophia University, Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies. Her research interests include work and family, gender and family, education, comparative family, environment and sustainable lifestyle, environmental sociology. 

Open to the public.