Professor Claudia Goldin Awarded Nobel Prize for Research on Women in the Economy

2023-10-09 12:45:00
The prize was awarded this Monday, October 9 to the 77-year-old American, professor of economics at Harvard University, for her work on the role of women in the economy.

After a week of ceremonies, the latest Nobel prize was presented in Stockholm this Monday, October 9 to economist Claudia Goldin, professor at Harvard and specialist in labor and economic history. The third woman to win the prize, she was recognized for “advancing understanding of the situation of women in the labor market,” according to the academy.

“It is a very important prize, not only for me, but for many people who work on this theme and who try to understand why there remain great inequalities”, despite “important developments”, reacted Claudia Goldin.

BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2023 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Claudia Goldin “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes.”#NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/FRAayC3Jwb

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2023

“Claudia Goldin’s research has given us new and often surprising insight into the historical and contemporary role of women in the labor market,” said the jury. “Claudia Goldin delved into archives and collected more than 200 years of data on the United States, allowing her to show how and why differences in income and employment rates between men and women have evolved over time,” noted Randi Hjalmarsson, of the Nobel jury.

Different elements come into play: the nature of income, domestic constraints and the expectations of women. “These elements have changed from one generation to the next,” emphasized the Nobel committee. For a long time, young women did not expect to have a career, and it is only recently that they have integrated the possibility of a long and active career. “In recent decades, more and more women have been studying and, in high-income countries, they generally have a higher level of education than men,” argued the jury.

While historically, a large part of the income gap might be explained by differences in education and professional choices, Claudia Goldin “showed that most of this income difference today is between men and women exercising the same profession, and that it largely occurs at the birth of the first child. His work also demonstrated that “access to the contraceptive pill” played an important role in accelerating the increase in education levels during the 20th century, by “providing new opportunities for career planning” , according to the Nobel committee.

Historically, much of the gender gap in earnings might be explained by differences in education and occupational choices. However, this year’s economic sciences laureate Claudia Goldin has shown that the bulk of this earnings difference is now between men and women in the same… pic.twitter.com/MGWou9hHZx

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2023

The Nobel Prize in Economics is also a dunce of parity among the famous awards. Before Claudia Goldin, only two women had won it: the American Elinor Ostrom (2009) and the Franco-American Esther Duflo (2019) out of 93 winners.

In 2022, the prize went to Ben Bernanke, the former president of the American central bank (Fed) and his compatriots Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig, for their work on banks and their necessary rescues during financial storms.

“False Nobel”

The only one not to have been provided for in Alfred Nobel’s will, the economics prize “in memory” of the inventor was added much later to the five traditional prizes.

In 1968, on the occasion of its tercentenary, the central bank of Sweden (Riksbank), the oldest in the world, established an economic sciences prize in memory of Alfred Nobel, making available to the Nobel Foundation a annual sum equivalent to the amount of the other prizes. For the winners of the 2023 vintage, the check accompanying the prize is now for eleven million crowns (920,000 euros), the highest nominal value (in Swedish currency) in the more than century-old history of the prize.

The economics prize closes the season of famous awards. The most prestigious Nobel Prize, that of peace, was awarded Friday to imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi. Previously, the Norwegian Jon Fosse had been rewarded in literature. The chemistry prize was awarded to Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov for their work on nanoparticles called quantum dots.

In physics, three specialists in the movement of electrons were awarded the prize, Anne L’Huillier, Pierre Agostini and Ferenc Krausz, and in medicine a duo, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, for their progress on the messenger RNA vaccine.

Updated: 1:54 p.m., adding Claudia Goldin’s reaction and more context.

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