My research centres around social and policy analysis of care, families, welfare, intergenerational relations, inequalities and gender. Over the course of my career, I have published widely in a diverse range of leading journals (e.g., Social Policy and Society, Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, Social Science Japan Journal and Australian Feminist Studies). I co-edited ‘Routledge Handbook of East Asian Gender Studies’ (Liu and Yamashita 2020), which is the first of its kind to provide a cutting-edge overview of the field. I have given invited speeches in both Europe and East Asia. I am a co-founder of the East Asian Social Policy research Network (EASP). I was awarded the EASP’s award for pioneering contribution to the development of East Asian Social Policy Research in 2012.

My recent research includes an international collaborative project on ‘Dual Responsibility of Care in East Asia’. The team consisted of scholars from Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the OECD. I was Co-I and this project was funded by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (£96k for 2016-19, £92k for 2012-2015). I also successfully completed a project 'Experiments in Collective Care’ funded by Brigstow Institute in 2019 (with Dr. Maud Perrier, SPAIS and Alice Tatton-Brown, artist). This was an interdisciplinary project, a collaboration with a local artist, bringing together art, archival research and public engagement through a public exhibition on collective care.