This new line of research has two goals. First, by integrating comparative-historical analysis with in-depth interviews, it examines how consumer credit has shaped the patterns of wealth inequality observed in contemporary East Asian societies (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan). Second, it develops a theory of the “second chance,” identifying the institutional mechanisms that enable individuals to rebuild their lives and the barriers that constrain such efforts. 

​Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with young adults in Seoul and Tokyo, this research seeks to understand why we experience inequality and insecurity in the ways we do at different times and places. 

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Meritocracy's Children: How Inequality Leaves Young Adults Angry or Resigned in Seoul and Tokyo, Under contract with the University of California Press.

Forthcoming (2026). “Precarity, Meritocracy, and Gendered Responses: Millennials and GenZs in Japan and South Korea.” in Sage Handbook of Global Youth Studies edited by B. Hanckel, K. Moore, A. Miranda, T. Shildrick and E. Laguna. Sage.

Forthcoming (2026). (with Dr. Jonathan Jarvis) “Revisiting the Exam Hell: Meritocracy, Inequality, and High-Stakes Testing in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.” The Journal of Asian Studies 85.5.

Forthcoming (2026). (with Dr. Jeehwan Park) ”College Admission in South Korea: Ordinary Sense of Fairness and its Ambivalence.” The Journal of Asian Studies 85.5.

2024. (with Dr. Myungji Yang). ”Why Are Korean Millennials More Resentful of Inequality than Their Japanese Peers?” European Journal of Korean Studies 23(2): 161-188. — Link to the paper

2023. (with Jiehyun Roh and Jaeseog Yang) "National Patterns of Inequality Coverage: Japanese and South Korean Newspapers, 1990-2021." International Sociology 39(1): 92–112. — Link to the paper

​2022. “Contradiction as Injustice: How Senses of Inequality Differ Across National Contexts.” Sociology 56(4): 710–729. — Link to the paper

In this project, I try to understand the personal consequences of the growth of unstable employment for workers and their responses to it. ​

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2023. (with Jaeseog Yang) “Death from Overwork in a Time of Pandemic: How Delivery Work Became a Locus of Public Debate in South Korea.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 53(4): 608-625. — Link to the paper

​2019. “Precarious Regular Workers in Japan.” Japan Forum 33(4):633-657.  — Link to the paper 

• 2018-2019 Graduate Student Best Paper Award, Department of Sociology, UHM​

l am also working on another project about democracy and right-wing politics in Japan and other East Asian societies, a topic I have been continuously researching since 2011.

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Forthcoming (2026). (Co-editor with Dr. Naoto Higuchi). The Digital Rise of the Far-Right in Japan. Manchester University Press. 

• Introduction and Conclusion (with Dr. Naoto Higuchi)

• "From Stigma to Symbolic Currency? Why “Made in Korea” Historical Revisionism Makes Sense for the Japanese Far Right" (with Dr. Myungji Yang)

2024. “New Right-Wing Movement as Alternative Politics.” in Alternative Politics in Contemporary Japan: New Directions in Social Movements edited by D. Slater and P. Steinhoff. University of Hawai'i Press. — Link to the publisher

• 2016 Seidensticker Award for Best Japan Paper, SPAS Graduate Student Conference, UHM

2024. (with Dr. Myungji Yang). ”Strange Bedfellows: Why Right-Wing Intellectuals in South Korea Chose to Cooperate with Their Country's Former Coloniser.” Nations and Nationalism. 30(1): 128–143. — Link to the paper

2021. (with Dr. Sharon Yoon) “The Rise and Fall of Japan’s New Far-Right: How Anti-Korean Discourses Went Mainstream.” Politics & Society 49(3): 363-402. — Link to the paper 

2020. (with Dr. Naoto Higuchi) “The Third Round of Immigrant Incorporation in East Asia: An Introduction to Special Issue Friends and Foes of Multicultural East Asia.” Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia 19(2): 1-19. — Link to the paper 

2020. (Guest editor with Dr. Naoto Higuchi) “Friends and Foes of Multiculturalism in East Asia.” Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia 19 (2) — Link to the journal

2019. “Becoming Right-Wing Citizens in Contemporary Japan.” Contemporary Japan 31(2): 122-140. — Link to the paper 

• 2020 Contemporary Japan Best Paper Award 

Book review

2021. "Review of Japan’s Nationalist Right in the Internet Age: Online Media and Grassroots Conservative Activism by Jeffrey Hall." Contemporary Japan. Online first.  — Link to the paper