Sawako SHIRAHASEProfessor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo

Sawako Shirahase is a professor of sociology at Tokyo University’s Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology. She is also director of the university’s Center for Contemporary Japanese Studies (TCJS). Prof. Shirahase earned a DPhil (PhD in Sociology) from the University of Oxford where she specialized in social stratification, sociology of population, family change, and social security. She is a leading expert in her field and has led largescale research projects, including national surveys, into each topic area. Her recent publications include Social Stratification in an Aging Society with Low Fertility (ed., Springer, 2022), “Social Stratification Theory and Population Aging Reconsidered” (Japan Journal of Social
Sciences, 2021), and The Structure of Social Stratification in an Aging Society with Low Fertility 1-3 (ed., Japanese only,
University of Tokyo Press, 2021).