The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden, awarded on 9th October 2023 the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for the year 2023 to Claudia Goldin, professor of Harvard University, for her research which has advanced the understanding of the gender gap in the job or labour market. She has uncovered the main drivers of gender difference in the labour market all over the world.
Claudia Goldin is the third woman to win the prestigious prize out of 93 economics laureates.
“I’ve always been an optimist. But when I look at the numbers, I think something has happened in the United States of America, that we, in the 1990s, our women labour force participation rate was the highest in the world, and now it isn’t the highest in the world,” Goldin said.
Through her research work, the Nobel winner highlighted the role played by marriage, parenthood, and contraceptive pills in women’s education, career, and salary trajectories.
Goldin has provided the first comprehensive account of American women’s earnings and labour market outcomes through the centuries. Though her research was focused on the US, but her findings are equally applicable to many other countries of the world.
Key Highlights of Claudia Goldin’s Research:
- She has examined 200 years of women’s engagement in the workforce and found that, despite sustained economic expansion, women’s pay did not always catch up to men’s, and there is still a gap even if women had greater levels of education.
- She provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labour market participation over the centuries.
- Her research has given new and often surprising insights into women’s historical and contemporary roles in the labour market.
- The core of her analyses and explanatory models is on the reality that women’s options have frequently been and continue to be constrained by marriage and responsibilities for the house and family.
- A member of the Nobel committee, economist Randi Hjalmarsson concluded that though her research does not offer solutions, yet it allows policymakers to tackle the entrenched problem.
- According to Goldin’s findings, women’s role in the labour market and their pay aren’t influenced just by broad social and economic changes, but are also determined partly by their individual decisions about, for example, how much schooling she will pursue.
More About Claudia Goldin:
Born: 14-05-1946
Birth Place: New York, United States
Age: 77 Years old
Education: University of Chicago
Awards: Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Science, Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities, US & Canada.
Famous Books: Career and Family, The Race Between Education and Technology, Understanding the Gender Gap.
About the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences:
The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was not a part of the ‘Alfred Nobel’s 1895 Will’ that established the other Nobel prizes. The Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) established this Prize in the Memory of Alfred Nobel, in the year 1968. The first prize in the field was awarded to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen in 1969.
Full List Of Nobel Prize Winners For The Year 2023:
- Nobel Prize 2023 in Physiology or Medicine:
Jointly awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman “for their outstanding contributions to the development of highly effective mRNA vaccines against the COVID-19”.
- Nobel Prize 2023 in Physics:
Honoured to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier “for the experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter particle.”
- Nobel Prize 2023 in Chemistry:
Honoured to Moungi G Bawendi, Louis E Brus and Alexei I Ekimov “for their contribution in discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.”
- Nobel Prize 2023 in Literature:
Honoured to Norwegian author Jon Fosse “for his work in innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”.
- Nobel Prize 2023 in Peace or The Nobel Peace Prize 2023:
Honoured to Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian activist “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and to promote human rights and freedom for all”.
Facts about the Nobel Prizes?
- The Nobel Prizes recognize outstanding contributions in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and the promotion of peace. Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor and scientist established these prizes before his demise in 1896. In 1968, the Nobel Prize in the field of Economic Sciences was introduced, with sponsorship from the Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
- As per the will of Sir Alfred Nobel, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honours the Nobel Prizes in Physics & Chemistry, the Swedish Academy honours the Nobel Prizes in Literature, the Karolinska Institute, Sweden’s medical university, honours the Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, and the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Parliament.