Economic Disparity between Men and Women in Japan and Korea: Exploring commonalities and differences (Handouts and video are available in Korean)

KYOJI FUKAO is Chairman of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), and University Professor at the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. Other positions include: Member of the Executive Committee of the Asian Historical Economics Society (AHES); Adviser, Maddison Project, University of Groningen. He has published widely on productivity, international economics, economic history, and related topics in journals such as the Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Income and Wealth, Explorations in Economic History, and Economica. Professor Fukao received his M.A. in Economics from the University of Tokyo.

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Ms. Kawamoto started her career at Bank of Tokyo (currently known as MUFG) and joined McKinsey & Company in Tokyo in 1988. She became Senior Expert in 2001, after spending four years in Paris office. She was a Professor at Waseda University from 2004 to 2021 teaching Corporate Governance and Financial Systems to Japanese and foreign students.While she was a professor, she also served as independent director to various companies such as Japan Exchange, Yamaha Motor, SoftBank Group and MUFG where she was a first-ever female independent director and chaired its Risk Committee. With the expertise in macro-economic and governance issues, she has contributed to a number of government functions.
Most recently she was appointed as National Public Safety Commissioner, supervising National Police Agency (2014-2019). She was appointed the current role, President of the National Personnel Authority, by the cabinet in 2021 with parliamentary consent and imperial attestation.She holds a BA degree in Social Psychology from Tokyo University, and Master degree in Development Economics from Oxford University.

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Tomoko Hayashi serves as Director-General of Economic Research Bureau, leading a team of 70 economists/analysts. Her role includes presenting the economic situation in Japan and overseas directly to the Prime Minister every month as Chief Economist of the government at the Prime Minister’s Residence.
Since beginning her career as a government economist, she has held several key positions in macroeconomic policy-making at the Cabinet Office, including Deputy Director-General for Economic Research and Director-General for Economic and Fiscal Affairs. She acted as Vice Chair of the OECD Economic Policy Committee.
She also served as Director-General for Gender Equality Bureau (2020-2022). She led key initiatives for gender equality, such as the Five-year Plan and the Women's Empowerment Policy Packages, to tackle gender-based impacts of the pandemic and wage inequality.
She has been a visiting lecturer of the Japanese economy at the University of Tokyo since 2010.
Her notable publication includes Macroeconomic Policy Frameworks (2003), Inflation Target and Monetary Policy (2006) co-authored with Takatoshi Ito, and Global Financial and Economic Crisis (2010) co-authored with Kazuo Ueda et al.
She holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Tokyo.

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My research interests include Gender and Social Policy, Work-Life Balance Policy, Family Policy, and Policies responding to the Low Fertility. The focus in my research is on Working parents’ and Childcare, and Low Fertility in Korean Society. The Family-Friendly policies on the firms and its effects on the workplace.
Also I worked with various government agencies as a committee member, such as Presidential Committee on Low Fertility and Aging Society, Presidential Committee on the Jobs, Committee on the Office for Government Policy and Coordination, Advisory Committee on the Forum 1.4 of Korean National Assembly, Policy Advisory Member of Ministry of Family and Gender Equality, Policy Advisory Member of Low Fertility and Aging Society, Ministry of Health and Welfare.

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1981 Ph.D., Sociology, University of Chicago
1991-present Professor Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
1991-present Research Associate, Population Research Center, NORC and University of Chicago
2008-2011 Chair, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
2005-2013 Hanna-Holborn-Gray Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago
2003 Visiting Professor Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
2001-2002 Visiting Scholar, Hitotsubashi University
1998-2007 Research Associate Alfred P. Sloan Center for the Study of Work and Family, NORC and University of Chicago
1987-1991 Associate Professor Department of Sociology, University of California-Los Angeles
1985-1987 Assistant Professor Department of Sociology, University of California-Los Angeles
1983-1985 Assistant Professor School of Public Health, Columbia University
1982-1985 Research Associate Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University
1976-1978 Labor Statistics Division, Research Department, Statistics Division, Prime Minister's Office, Japan
1971-1974 Economic Statistics Division, Research Department, Statistics Bureau, Prime Minister's Office, Japan

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Yukiko Asai is an Assistant Instructional Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy. Prior to joining Harris, Yukiko served as a Junior Researcher (Assistant Professor) at Waseda University in Japan and worked as both a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. Her research and teaching primarily focus on labor economics and personnel economics, with a particular emphasis on analyzing the impacts of family leave and childcare policies.

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Ph.D. in Economics from University of Chicago, worked at the Economics Department of University of Southern California and Vanderbilt University in the United States,at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Japan,and also at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in Korea, before he joined the faculty of Graduate School of International Studies at the Seoul National University in 2015, where he works now. Professor Jeong's core research areas are economic growth and development, income distribution dynamics, human capital, and finance.
His recent research agenda include understanding Korea’s development process of the past and future, demography and economy, sustainable global development, balanced regional development, technology innovations and urban development, macroeconomic dynamics of land and housing, firm dynamics and international trade, higher education reform, North Korean economy, and international development cooperation issues such as knowledge sharing and development finance to facilitate the global development.
He has served public domains by consulting Korean government and public agencies (Blue House, Office of Prime Minister, Ministry of Economy and Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, Ministry of Unification, Bank of Korea, Export-Import Bank of Korea, and Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry) as well as the US public agencies (National Committee on American Foreign Policy), international agencies (World Bank, UNESCAP, UNFPA, OECD DAC), and various government agencies of developing countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia,Thailand, and Zambia.

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Shintaro Yamaguchi is a Professor of Economics at the University of Tokyo. His research focuses on labor economics, family economics, and public policy, with particular emphasis on gender disparities, parental leave, and workplace practices. His work has been published in leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Labor Economics, and the Journal of Public Economics. He actively contributes to policy discussions, serving on government advisory panels such as the Gender Equality Council of the Cabinet Office. In addition, he writes columns and provides expert commentary for major media outlets. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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Underwood Distinguished Professor of Yonsei University
Professor of Sociology at Yonsei University
Director. Yonsei Signature Research Cluster of Sociology.
Director. Center for Interdisciplinary Approaches to Aging at Institute of Convergence Science. Yonsei University.
Director. A Korean Study of Adolescent Health (KSAH)
Director. Korean Social life, Health, and Aging Project (KSHAP)
2000 - 2005 Assistant Professor of Sociology. The University of Illinois at Chicago
1984 - 1987 B.A. Business administration. Yonsei University, South Korea
1988 - 1990 M.A. Business administration. Yonsei University, South Korea
1993 - 2000 Ph.D. Sociology. The University of Chicago, USA

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2022 Faculty Fellow, RIETI
2021 Research Director, The Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research
2021 Head of Digital Education, Digital Agency
2019 Professor, Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University
2013 Associate Professor, Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University
2010 Assistant Professor, Tohoku University
2005 World Bank
1998 Bank of Japan

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Professor in the Department of Urban Sociology at University of Seoul, Seoul, South Korea. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on understanding gender differences in health within various social contexts, including social relationships (family, social networks, transnational ties), work-family balance, rest and recovery inequality, and access to health care.

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Professor Youjin Hahn is a Professor of Economics at Yonsei University. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on labor economics, development economics, health economics, and gender. She has studied the impact of educational interventions on gender attitudes among adolescent girls in Tanzania, the motherhood earnings penalty (i.e., the child penalty) in South Korea, and gender differences in how employment transitions affect subjective well-being. Her work has been published in leading academic journals.

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After working at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute and a consulting firm, he assumed his current position. He also serves as the Representative Director of the Center for Evidence Co-creation. He earned his PhD in international studies from the University of Tokyo. His expertise lies in applied microeconometrics, with a focus on empirical research in education and policy evaluation. He engages in evidence generation in collaboration with government agencies, local authorities, and private organizations from both research and practical perspectives, and serves as an expert member of government meetings and as an advisor to local governments on Evidence-Based Policy Making (EBPM).

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Born in 1975. Withdrew from the doctoral program (after completing the required coursework) in the Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science in 2004, through a joint program with the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK). In the same year, earned a Ph.D. in Science for research on neutrino physics using Super-Kamiokande and accelerator experiments. Subsequently shifted research focus to Science, Technology and Society (STS), engaging in research and education on the relationship between science, technology, and society. Held positions as a researcher at Tokyo Institute of Technology from 2004, a senior researcher at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies from 2005, and an associate professor at the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo from 2007. Has been in the current position since 2017. In addition to publishing academic papers, frequently contributes opinions in newspapers and other media. Serves as a board member of the National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), the Toyota Foundation, and the University of Tokyo Press.

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Dr. Kyoko Suzuki specializes in the sociology of work and organizations. Her research interests include quantitative analysis of inequality in the Japanese labor market, the historical formation of employment practices and social norms in Japanese firms, and critical examinations of the history of labor studies. She received her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo. Prior to her current position, she was a researcher at the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training.

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TOMIURA Eiichi is President and CRO of RIETI since April 2024. He is also Dean, Faculty of Data Science, Otsuma Women's University. Prior to his current position, he was formerly Professor of Economics at Hitotsubashi University and Dean, College of Economics at Yokohama National University. He was also served for Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), Government of Japan till 2000.
He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 and his B.A. in Economics from University of Tokyo in 1984. His research expertise is in empirical international trade, especially offshore outsourcing with firm-level data. His articles have been published in many journals including Journal of International Economics, Review of International Economics, and Regional Science and Urban Economics. He has received Economist Award, Nikkei Prize, and Kojima Kiyoshi Prize in Japan.

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