Next month, I am attending the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America to present my poster “Social-Institutional Structures That Matter: An Exploratory Analysis of Sexual/Gender Minority Status and Income in Japan.” This work is based on my MA thesis, and I am currently rewriting it for publication.

Title: Social-Institutional Structures That Matter: An Exploratory Analysis of Sexual/Gender Minority Status and Income in Japan

Abstract: While most previous studies examining the effects of sexual orientation on earnings rely on lesbian women, gay men, and their heterosexual counterparts in Western societies, this paper argues that focusing on different stratification processes within sexual/gender minorities as well as social-institutional structures of a society is indispensable to the study of sexuality stratification. Using the LGBT Workplace Environment Survey 2015, this study explores the association between sexual/gender minority status and income in Japan. The results show that there is a negative association between being a sexual/gender minority and income among both designated females at birth and designated males at birth. The results suggesting the lesbian premium found in Western economies are not observed in Japan. In addition, the findings indicate that the processes through which sexuality stratification operates depend on various categories of sexual/gender minorities such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, and a local transgender category in Japan “X-gender.”

On Thursday, April 27, Brian Serafini will be presenting our joint work “Beyond the Urban Core: How Place, Conservative Protestantism and Precarity Affect Divorce Filing Rates” at the upcoming annual meeting of the Population Association of America. This paper is co-authored by Brian Serafini, Julie Brines, and Daiki Hiramori.

Title: Beyond the Urban Core: How Place, Conservative Protestantism and Precarity Affect Divorce Filing Rates

Abstract: Why are divorce rates in non-metropolitan areas within the U.S. approaching those of the urban core? Recent evidence suggests that non-urban regions exhibit higher rates of conservative Protestantism, encouraging early transitions into marriage and childbearing that elevate the risk of divorce. Other work suggests that non-metropolitan regions have suffered acute declines in labor force attachment among less-educated workers, accompanied by a “casualization” of family relations that may jeopardize marital stability. Using 15 years of monthly data on county divorce filings in Washington State, we examine both perspectives. We find that less “metropolitan” counties tend to have higher divorce rates, but that higher rates of evangelical Protestantism explain this finding only for divorces not involving young children. County-level measures of educational attainment and manufacturing employment affect filing rates in ways consistent with the “casualization” hypothesis, but among couples with children, these factors do not explain persistently-higher divorce rates in non-metropolitan counties.

On June 19, I participated in the “Report Meeting on the LGBT Workplace Environment Survey: The Power of Data for the Improvement of the Workplace Environment in Tokyo 2016,” cosponsored by the nonprofit organization Nijiiro Diversity and the Center for Gender Studies at International Christian University, as a data commentator.

6月19日に、特定非営利活動法人虹色ダイバーシティおよび国際基督教大学ジェンダー研究センター共催の「LGBT職場環境アンケート報告会 〜データを職場環境改善のチカラに〜」にデータ解説担当として参加してきました。報告会での配布資料が虹色ダイバーシティのホームページにアップされましたので、ぜひご覧ください！

On June 12, I will be presenting “Possibilities of Queer and Feminist Methodologies in Quantitative Research: Findings from the ‘LGBT Workplace Environment Survey 2015’” at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of Japan (PAJ). The panel session “Sexual Minorities in Population Studies: Current State of Research in Japan” is the first session on sexual minorities at PAJ, so I am very excited to give my presentation.

6月12日の日本人口学会にて「計量研究におけるクィア・フェミニスト方法論の可能性――『LGBT職場環境アンケート 2015』の分析結果から」という報告を行うことになりました。今回報告を行う企画セッション「セクシュアル・マイノリティに関する人口学的研究―日本における研究動向の今―」は日本人口学会初のセクシュアル・マイノリティに関するセッションということで、とても楽しみにしています。

NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) News at 6 pm on September 5 covered the report meeting of the LGBT Workplace Environment Survey, and I got interviewed as well.
I made a comment and said, “The survey showed that many sexual/gender minority people felt that unintentional language and behavior from their colleagues at the workplace was discriminatory, even when it was not directed toward themselves. Companies should create a friendly workplace on the premise that there are a certain number of sexual/gender minority people.”

9月5日午後6時からのNHKニュースでLGBT職場環境アンケート報告会が取り上げられ、取材も受けました。
インタビューでは、「直接本人に向けられたものではなくても、職場の同僚の何気ない言動が差別的だと感じる当事者が多いことが分かった。企業は一定の割合で当事者がいるという前提で働きやすい職場を作ってほしい」とコメントしました。ウェブ上に記事も掲載されていますので、こちらよりご覧ください。ニュースで放送された映像も同サイトから見ることができます。