Claudia Goldin awarded Nobel economics prize for research on gender wage gap

Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University professor [Photo by Reuters]

Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University professor, has won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics for “having advanced our understanding of women’s labor market outcomes,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday.

“Understanding women’s role in the labor is important for society,” said Jakob Svensson, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences. “Thanks to Claudia Goldin’s groundbreaking research we now know much more about the underlying factors and which barriers may need to be addressed in the future.”

Goldin has long been considered a perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize for identifying the reasons why gender wage gaps have not narrowed significantly despite steady female labor market entry.

According to her research, women’s participation in the labor market declined during the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society in the early 19th century, but has risen again since the 20th century, driven by growth in the service sector.

Education levels have also continually improved, with women’s education surpassing men’s significantly in most high-income countries.

However, women still earn less than men in the global labor market.

Goldin believes that the wage gap between women and men widens as women choose flexible work over high-paying and labor-intensive “greedy jobs” to care for their families.

She proposed an alternative approach to reducing wage disparities by making high-income, high-intensity working cultures more flexible while maintaining high productivity in flexible jobs.

Goldin is recognized as a master of labor economics with a strong understanding of biology. She majored in biology at Cornell University but later developed an interest in economics, earning her master’s and doctoral degrees in economics at the University of Chicago.

In 1990, Goldin became the first female tenured professor of economics at Harvard University. This academic background is credited with greatly broadening the scope of her research on women in the labor market, including the impact of oral contraceptives on women’s careers and marriages.

Lee Jong-hwa, a professor at Korea University and former president of the Korean Economic Association who built a friendship with Goldin during his time at Harvard, described her as “a passionate scholar.”

“Many women will be inspired to study economics in a current reality where there is still a glass ceiling for women in the labor market,” he said.