Claudia Goldin wins Nobel economics prize for work on women’s pay

An economic historian and Harvard professor, Claudia Goldin, has been awarded with the Nobel Prize in economics for her work examining the gender pay gap.

Goldin’s unprecedented research highlights the fact that women, despite their higher academic qualifications, are paid less than men; and that mostly this difference arises after childbirth.

“This year’s Laureate in the Economic Sciences, Claudia Goldin, provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labour market participation through the centuries,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday.

“Her research reveals the causes of change, as well as the main sources of the remaining gender gap.”

This year’s economic sciences laureate Claudia Goldin showed that female participation in the labour market did not have an upward trend over a 200 year period, but instead forms a U-shaped curve.

The participation of married women decreased with the transition from an agrarian… pic.twitter.com/PFVNNy5NOw

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

After Elinor Ostrom in 2009 and Esther Duflo in 2019, Goldin is the third woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in economics — a category with the lowest number of female laureates.

Goldin’s research examines data tracing 200 years of women’s participation in the workforce in the United States.

As per her research, a woman’s role in the job market and her pay are, in part, decided by individual decisions, including educational choices, as well as broad social and economic changes.

The prize committee highlights that while much of the earnings gap historically could be explained by differences in education and occupational choices, Goldin “has shown that the bulk of this earnings difference is now between men and women in the same occupation, and that it largely arises with the birth of the first child”.

Historically, much of the gender gap in earnings could 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