Prof Satoshi Araki
Assistant Professor
+852 3917 8532
9.09, 9/F., The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus
Satoshi Araki holds his DPhil in sociology from the University of Oxford and an MA/BA from the University of Tokyo. Prior to starting his academic career, he had extensively contributed to policy-making as a consultant of the World Bank/Global Partnership for Education, a researcher of the Mitsubishi Research Institute, and a fellow of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization - Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development (SEAMEO-RIHED), among others.
His current research ranges from social stratification and inequality to the sociology of education and work, family issues, well-being, and research methods. In addition to more than 50 policy papers, Prof Araki has published his work in top journals across disciplines, including the American Sociological Review, Socio-Economic Review, Social Science & Medicine, Sociology, European Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Higher Education, Social Psychological and Personality Science, Journal of Happiness Studies, Social Indicators Research, and Journal of Applied Gerontology.
He is also an editorial board member of Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, one of open-access Nature researchjournals, and PLOS ONE. Prof Araki has been serving as an external reviewer for many world-leading journals, such as Nature, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Sociology of Education, European Sociological Review, Socio-Economic Review, Social Forces, Higher Education, and The Gerontologist.
DPhil: University of Oxford
MA: University of Tokyo
BA: University of Tokyo
Social Stratification and Inequality
Education and Work
Comparative Social Policy/Comparative Education
Multidimensional Well-being
Family and Marriage
Research Methods
Education, Skills, and Intergenerational Inequality
Typologies of Societies: Comparative Research on Education and Socio-Economic Outcomes
Workplace Flexibility and Worker Well-being
Marital Aspiration/Attitude and Demographic Trend
Happiness and Multidimensional Well-being
Japan Paradox and Skills Trap
Methodological Study on Mixed Methods
2022 Best Paper Award, Japan Society of Educational Sociology (for “Educational Expansion, Skills Diffusion, and the Economic Value of Credentials and Skills” American Sociological Review, 2020, 85(1): 128-175 https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419897873)
2018-2019 Graduate Scholarship, Japan Student Services Organization
2016-2019 Saitama Goodwill Ambassador (under the scheme of Saitama Scholarship)
2016-2019 Sasakawa Scholarship, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
2016 British Council Japan Association Scholarship
2016 Research Award, Kitano Foundation of Lifelong Integrated Education
Araki, Satoshi. 2025. “Reassessing human capital and health capital over the life course: Causal mediation analysis of higher education, health, and wages.” Social Science & Medicine, 381: 118299. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118299)
Araki, Satoshi. 2025. “Cross-national variation in the skills trap: Illuminating the heterogeneous economic returns to high cognitive skills.” European Sociological Review, Online First. (https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcae048)
Araki, Satoshi and Shiyuan Li. 2025. “The shifting happiness return to higher education over 50 years: Causal mediation analysis of college completion, economic benefits, and happiness in the USA”, Higher Education Online First. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-025-01477-1)
Araki, Satoshi and Francisco Olivos. 2025. “Gender Inequality, Well-being, and Ill-being: A macro analysis of human and societal flourishing.” Social Science & Medicine, 366: 117670. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117670)
Araki, Satoshi. 2025. “Assessing educational inequality in high participation systems: The role of educational expansion and skills diffusion in comparative perspective.” Higher Education, 89(2): 487-512. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01232-y)
Araki, Satoshi. 2025. “Education and Multidimensional Inequalities in Contemporary Japan and Beyond: A Call for Longitudinal and Comparative Studies”, Sociology Compass, 19: e70072 (https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.70072)
Araki, Satoshi. 2025. “Heterogeneous Effects of Telework on Job Satisfaction across Gender and Employment Precarity: Evidence from postpandemic Japan.” Social Science Japan Journal 28(1): jyaf004 (https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyaf004)
Araki, Satoshi and Jeremy Rappleye. 2024. “Flexibility loss and worker well-being: What happens to job satisfaction when workers lose their telework usage?” Socio-Economic Review, 22(2): 859-882. (https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwae009)
Araki, Satoshi and Francisco Olivos. 2024. “Low Income, Ill-being, and Gender Inequality: Explaining cross-national variation in the gendered risk of suffering among the poor.” Social Indicators Research, 174(1): 157-220. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-024-03358-z)
Araki, Satoshi. 2024. “The Societal Determinants of Happiness and Unhappiness: Evidence from 152 countries over 15 years.” Social Psychological and Personality Science, 15(5): 603-615. (https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231197803)
Araki, Satoshi. 2023. “Beyond ‘Imagined Meritocracy’: Distinguishing the relative power of education and skills in intergenerational inequality.” Sociology57(4): 975–992 (https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385231156093)
Olivos, Francisco and Satoshi Arak. 2023. “Cultural Capital and Perception of Teacher-Student Relationships: Uncovering inequalities at schools in China.” British Journal of Sociology 74(3): 376-401 (https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.13004)
Araki, Satoshi. 2023. “Shedding New Light on Happiness Inequality via Unconditional Quantile Regression: The case of Japan under the Covid-19 crisis.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 84: 100782. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2023.100782)
Araki, Satoshi. 2023. “Beyond the High Participation Systems Model: Illuminating the Heterogeneous Patterns of Higher Education Expansion and Skills Diffusion Across 27 Countries.” Higher Education 86(1): 119-137 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00905-w)
Araki, Satoshi. 2023. “Life Satisfaction, Skills Diffusion, and the Japan Paradox: Toward Multidisciplinary Research on the Skills Trap.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 64(3): 278-299 (https://doi.org/10.1177/00207152221124812)
Araki, Satoshi. 2023. “Flexibly Maintained Inequality in Workplace Flexibility: Absolute and relative shifts in telework under Covid-19.” Social Science Japan Journal 26(2): 215-234 (https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyad004)
Araki, Satoshi and Takehiko Kariya. 2022. “Credential Inflation and Decredentialization: Re-examining the Mechanism of the Devaluation of Degrees.” European Sociological Review 38(6): 904-919 (https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac004)
Araki, Satoshi. 2022. “The Resilience Divide Among Older Adults Under Uncertainty: A Positive Sociological Study of Life Satisfaction During the COVID-19 Crisis.” Journal of Applied Gerontology 41(8): 1792-1801 (https://doi.org/10.1177/07334648221089284)
Araki, Satoshi. 2022. “Does Education Make People Happy? Spotlighting the Overlooked Societal Condition.” Journal of Happiness Studies 23(2): 587-629 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00416-y)
Araki, Satoshi. 2020. “Educational Expansion, Skills Diffusion, and the Economic Value of Credentials and Skills.” American Sociological Review 85(1): 128-175 (https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419897873)