Self-introduction, Career Path, and Interest in the Transport Sector and Gender Issues
Trained in urban policy and feminist geography (Sciences Po, LSE, University of Oxford), I examine how gendered power relations and broader structures of inequality shape mobility practices and structure differential experiences of transport systems and the urban environment.
Over 11 years in transport consulting and at the OECD, I have advised governments and private companies on the design and implementation of sustainable transport policies, always placing equality and justice at the core of my work. My doctoral research at the University of Oxford analyses the relationship between structural gender inequalities in Japan and women’s cycling practices in Tokyo, providing an empirically grounded framework for understanding how mobility systems reproduce inequalities, as well as shape people’s lived experiences of these inequalities.
My interest in gender emerged from a broader concern with how social and economic structures shape everyday life in cities. In studying mobility, I became increasingly aware that transport policy should not be limited to technical issues and infrastructure design. Rather, mobility is deeply connected to how work and care are organised within households but also in society more widely through childcare policies and labour market practices. Using gender as an analytical lens has allowed me to understand why some daily trips — such as commuting — are recognised and supported in planning, while others — such as escorting children or managing household tasks — remain less visible, even though they are essential to everyday life. Focusing on gender has also allowed me to examine mobility as something that reflects how societies organise paid work and family life in a way that continues to limit women’s capacity to thrive.
Current Projects/ My Role in the Project
I have been working at the OECD for four years, shared between the International Transport Forum, where I was part of the gender taskforce and worked on the development of a gender mainstreaming strategy, and the CITY Division of the OECD’s Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. I am currently contributing my gender and mobility expertise to the Inclusive Growth in Cities unit. Connecting my academic life and my professional life, I always seek to ground policymaking recommendations in a structural understanding of inequalities, ensuring that urban futures are not only low carbon but also inclusive. Building on my research at the University of Oxford, I continuously exchange with Japanese researchers and policymakers to explore how my research findings could serve policymaking.
Project Outcomes and Evaluation
My research examines how gender and everyday mobility intersect in Tokyo, with a particular focus on women’s cycling practices. While cycling in many cities is often discussed primarily in relation to infrastructure design and delivery, my work explores how bicycle use is embedded in the organisation of everyday life — especially in the coordination of paid work, childcare, and household responsibilities that still rest predominantly on women in the Japanese context. Drawing on qualitative research (interviews, travel diaries, workshops) with women in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, as well as interviews with policymakers and local experts, I analyse how cycling becomes a practical strategy for managing time, space, and care in a context where caregiving responsibilities remain unevenly distributed.
Using a feminist economic geography perspective, the research situates cycling within broader labour market structures, welfare arrangements, and cultural expectations surrounding work and family life. It shows that women’s reliance on bicycles in Tokyo is not simply a matter of preference or infrastructure quality, but is part of broader strategies to improve one’s agency in face of time constraints, strong expectations resting on women and, in particular, mothers, as well as limited support for care and household maintenance. The study also examines how cycling policy is framed and implemented, and how different forms of mobility — particularly those associated with commuting versus caregiving — are recognised and supported.
By bringing everyday experiences into dialogue with policy analysis, this research aims to contribute to a more context-sensitive understanding of cycling in Japan. It highlights the importance of considering how diverse mobility needs, shaped by childcare arrangements and practices on the labour market, interact with urban space and transport planning. In doing so, the research offers insights that may help inform inclusive and responsive cycling policies in Tokyo and beyond.
Message to Japan
Japan has developed a uniquely rich and distinctive cycling culture, led and sustained by women and caregivers. In Tokyo and many other cities, cycling is not only a mode of transport: it is at the core of everyday strategies that support childcare, household life, neighbourhood connection, and access to work. It is age-inclusive, widely accessible, and deeply embedded in local routines and in the specific Japanese urban fabric. In many respects, this form of cycling —— has no direct equivalent elsewhere in the world.
Recognising this strength is an opportunity. Cycling in Japan already plays a vital role in helping parents, especially mothers, balance paid work and childcare under conditions of time pressure. By acknowledging how cycling supports care, policy can better reflect the realities of everyday life. Ensuring that infrastructure and regulations support both continuous commuting trips and shorter, multi-stop neighbourhood trips would help sustain the diversity of cycling practices that already exist. Japan, therefore, has the potential to cultivate a uniquely inclusive cycling culture — one that values care alongside productivity, and supports all types of cyclists in their daily lives.