Fumie Kumagai (Ph.D.) is a professor emeritus of Kyorin University in Tokyo. She holds an American doctorate in sociology with extensive experiences in the West as a student, a college professor, and the researcher. Her overseas experience affords her a unique cross-cultural perspective in the field of families and demography, social issues, and intercultural communication. Her major interest is in regional variations on Japanese population, families, and socio-cultural characteristics based on municipality, but not by prefecture, or Japan by any means. She has published 30 volumes of books and monographs in Japanese and/or English, including the one forthcoming. Of them, her sole-authored books in English include Unmasking Japan Today: The Impact of Traditional Values on Modern Japanese Society (1996, Prager), Families in Japan: Changes, Continuities, and Regional Variations (2008, University Press of America), Family Issues onMarriage, Divorce, and Older Adults in Japan: With Special Attention to Regional Variations (2015, Springer), Municipal Power and Population Decline in Japan: Goki-Shichido and Regional Variations (2020, Springer), Shrinking Japan and Regional Variations: Along the Hokurikudo and the Tosando, I and II (2021, Springer), Shrinking Japan and Regional Variations: Along the Tokaido (2023, Springer), Shrinking Japan and Regional Variations: Along the Sannyodo (forthcoming, Springer),and numerous numbers of refereed articles in such journals as Journal of Family History, Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, and Victimology.
