Akiko SAKANISHI

Professor
Ritsumeikan University

Akiko Sakanishi is a professor of regional and urban economics at the College of Policy Science, Ritsumeikan University. She studied as a visiting scholar at the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States from 2015 to 2016. Her research interests are regional labour market disparities, the gender gap in labour force participation and time allocation, and regional population and employment dynamics. Her recent research focuses on the relationship between demographic conditions and urban spatial structure. She is very interested in how the rapid ageing of the population and the shrinkage of the working-age population in Japan influence regional economic growth.

Research themes: Family formation, Demographic shift, Urbanization process

Collaboration with FFJ

2023 Visiting researcher
Stay: June - July 2023
Theme 1

Akiko Sakanishi is Visiting researcher at FFJ in the framework of its Theme 4 on cities and mobilities. During her stay, she will continue to work on her research project:

An increasing tendency of living alone and re-urbanization has been observed in both France and Japan. In Japan, changes in family formation resulting from an increase in non-marriage and late marriages have caused a sharp increase in living alone among the working-age population. In this research project, we examine population changes in the large metropolitan areas in each country and consider their relation to the changes in family formation. This study investigates and compares the factors affecting sociodemographic conditions in large metropolitan areas in France and Japan. No studies have ever explored comparative analysis of family formation and urban structure in France and Japan. The findings obtained by this research should be of special interest to urban policymakers in each country.

Publications