Claudia Goldin, a specialist in women at work, received the Economics Nobel Prize

Claudia Goldin, a specialist in women at work, received the Economics Nobel Prize
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Claudia Goldin of Harvard University has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics for her study of women in the job market. She researches the causes of the continuing pay disparity between men and women as well as how working women’s roles have changed over time.

The award comes with a prize of 11 million kronor, or roughly $1 million, and is officially known as The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Goldin is the third female winner of the honor.

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Randi Hjalmarsson, a member of the Nobel committee, stated that Claudia Goldin’s results “have broad societal implications.” “She has shown us that the root cause of this problem or the root of these underlying gender gaps varies throughout history as well as the course of development.”

According to Goldin’s research, women’s employment status has not changed linearly over time but has instead fluctuated in step with societal expectations and women’s personal perceptions of their chances at work and at home. Some of these beliefs are hard to modify since they are formed early in life.

“She can explain why the gender gap unexpectedly started to close in the 1980s and the unanticipated role of the birth control pill and altering expectation,” Hjalmarsson stated. “And she might clarify why the earnings gap stopped closing today & the role of parenthood.”

It was far easier to say than to do to trace the history of women in the workforce. According to the Nobel committee, Goldin frequently had to deal with faulty records.

The persistent gender pay disparity

Nearly half of American employment is currently held by women, although they often make less money. In late 2019 and early 2020, they briefly outnumbered men on payrolls, but early in the epidemic, a substantial number of women left the workforce, and their numbers have only lately begun to recover.

Goldin provided a prescription for reducing the wage gap between men and women in a 2021 interview with NPR: increased government financing for child care and more jobs that allowed employees to share work as opposed to what she called “greedy jobs.”

“The solution is not a simple one, but it is part of it is reducing the worth of these ‘greedy jobs,’ getting jobs where individuals are very good replacements for each other & can trade-off,” she stated. “And I am aware that some will argue that this is not conceivable. But in obstetrics, it is actually done. It is carried out in anesthesia. Pediatrics practice it. In veterinary medicine, it is practiced. It occurs in a number of banking choices. And if we can accomplish that with the incredible IT we have, we can probably accomplish it abroad as well.

Some forecasts believe that as women outnumber males on college campuses as well as service-oriented industries like health care continue to rise, women’s roles in the workplace will only increase.

The prize committee’s chair, Jakob Svensson, stated that it is crucial for society to understand women’s place in the workforce. “Thanks to Claudia Goldin’s groundbreaking research, we have learned much more about the underlying factors and what barriers may need to be handled in the future.”

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