Ito Peng

Ito Peng is the Canada Research Chair in Global Social Policy and the Director of the Centre for Global Social Policy at the Department of Sociology, and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on global social policy and political economy, specializing in the care economy, and family, gender, migration, and climate change policies. She teaches Political Sociology and Social Contexts of Public Policymaking in Department of Sociology and the Munk School. She currently leads two research projects: 1) Care Economies in Context: towards sustainable social and economic development, a global partnership research project that investigates care infrastructures in 9 countries in 5 global regions and uses that data to develop gender-sensitive macroeconomic models of care economies in these countries; and 2) Care and Climate Change Policies project, a Taskforce for the Royal Society of Canada, aimed to compile a package of policy briefs and think pieces on different dimensions of care and climate change.

She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a member of the Sectoral Table on the Care Economy for the Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), and a distinguished fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, currently serving as a thought leader for the foundation's Women’s Business Missions to Asia Pacific initiative. She was a co-lead for the Room 5 for the Rockefeller Foundation-Brookings Institute’s 17-Rooms Global Flagship project (2021-2023).

For more information, see: Centre for Global Social Policy and Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

Recent Publications

Peng, Ito. 2023. “COVID-19, Global Care and Migration”, in Mignon Duffy, Amy Armenia and Kim Price-Glynn eds. From Crisis to Catastrophe: Care, COVID-19, and Pathways to Change. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. pp. 40-58.

Peng, Ito. 2023. “Policy Brief in Response to the World Bank's Invest in Childcare Initiative”, Gender&Care Network, The World Bank’s Invest in Childcare initiative: a vehicle for achieving gender equality and responding to the care crisis?

Peng, Ito and Jiweon Jun. 2022. “Impacts of COVID-19 on Care and Work Arrangements in South Korea: Empirical Findings and Policy Implications”, International Journal of Care and Caring. 6(1-2): 13-32.

Davison, Jeremy and Ito Peng. 2021. “Views on Immigration in Japan; Identities, Interests, and Pragmatic Divergence”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 47(11): 2578-2595. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1862645

Peng, Ito. 2021. “Long-term care insurance would better serve Canada’s aging population”, Policy Options, May 20, 2021. Long-term care insurance would better serve Canada’s aging population

Peng, Ito. 2021. “Systemic Resilience and Carework: An Asia-Pacific Perspective”, Think-piece No. 7 of the MigResHub, Migration Policy Centre, RSCAS, European University Institute. March 2021. https://migrationpolicycentre.eu/docs/migreshub/MigResHub-think-piece-No7.pdf