A Comprehensive Study of Cumulative Advantages/Disadvantages and the Life Course

This study examines how disparities and inequalities are created, sustained, and accumulated across the life course. In order to understand the dynamics behind inequality of educational opportunities, the attainment of occupational status and income across the life course, we have conducted a longitudinal survey of the youth and the middle-aged individuals. This has enabled us to trace the trajectories of the same individuals over the years. The survey data set is made available to the public by the Social Science Japan Data Archive for academic purposes. We announce the outcomes of our research project in an annual press release. The NHK national broadcasting network, the Asahi Shimbun, the Yomiuri Shimbun, The Nikkei, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and other media outlets featured our research results. The members of our research project presented papers at the meetings of the Japan Sociological Society, the Japan Society of Educational Sociology, the Japanese Association for Mathematical Sociology, the International Sociological Association, and the American Sociological Association. The members also contributed articles to professional journals both in Japanese and English.Three volume series entitled, Accumulation of Inequality and the Youth, (in Japanese) have been published have been published by Keiso Shobo.

• Hiroshi Ishida and Kenji Ishida (eds.). 2024 In Search of Second Chances in a Divided Society: The Possibility of Life Course Reorientation - Evidence from the Japanese Life Course Panel Surveys (in Japanese) (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo).
• Ishida, Hiroshi. 2023. "School-to-Work Transition among High School Students in Japan,", Journey to Adulthood: East Asian Perspective, edited by Chin-Chun Yi & Ming-Chang Tsai, London: Sage.
• Hiroshi Ishida, Shin Arita, and Sho Fujihara (eds.). 2020. Tracing People’s Lives: How Contemporary Japanese Society Is Reflected in the Japanese Life Course Panel Surveys (in Japanese). (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo).
• Hiroki Sato and Hiroshi Ishida (eds.). 2019. Dating and Marriage. Volume 2 of Accumulation of Inequality and the Youth series (in Japanese). (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo).
• Ishida, Hiroshi (ed.). 2017, Cumulative Advantages and Disadvantage among Young People Volume 1: Education and Career, Keiso Shobo Publisher.
• Sato, Kaoru (ed.). 2017, Cumulative Advantages and Disadvantage among Young People Volume3: Life Design and Hope, Keiso Shobo Publisher.
• Fujihara, Sho and Hiroshi Ishida. 2016. "The Absolute and Relative Values of Education and the Inequality of Educational Opportunity: Trends in Access to Education in Postwar Japan," Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 43: 25-37.
• Arita, Shin. 2016, The Sociology of Reward Inequality among Employment Positions: A Comparison of Non-standard Employment and Social Stratification in Japan and Korea, University of Tokyo Press.
• Ishida, Hiroshi. 2013. "The Transition to Adulthood among Japanese Youths: Understanding Courtship in Japan." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 646: 86-106.