Touko Shirakawa graduated from Faculty of Letters, Department of Sociology, Keio University in 1984. She spent the next 17 years in business, mostly at Sumitomo Corporation, IBM, and Lehman Brothers. In 2002, she began to write about women’s issues, with a focus on finding a work-life balance for working mothers. In 2008, Ms. Shirakawa published “The Era of KONKATSU (Marriage Hunting Era)”, co-authored with Masahiro Yamaguchi, Professor of Sociology at Chuo University, which has sold 200,000 copies. She served as a member of the Cabinet Secretariat’s National Council for Promoting the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens (2015), the Cabinet Office Gender Equality Bureau’s Expert Panel on Priority Policies, and the Cabinet Secretariat’s Council for the Realization of Work Style Reform (2016).