The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded Monday to Claudia Goldin, a Harvard professor, for advancing the global understanding of women’s progress in the workforce.
Ms. Goldin is the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, first awarded in 1969, and the first to be honored alone rather than sharing the prize.
Who is the winner?
Claudia Goldin, 77, is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. She has long been a pioneering woman in the field – in 1989, she was the first woman to be offered a job in the economics department at Harvard University.
She has written and edited several books, her most recent being Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey into Equity, published in 2021.
Why did the committee say she received the award?
The Nobel Committee announced the award in Stockholm. The committee praised Ms. Goldin for her research on women’s employment, which showed that employment of married women declined in the 19th century as the economy shifted from agriculture to industry. Then, in the 1990s, women’s participation increased as the service sector began to expand as part of the economy.
It has also shown that the process of closing the gender pay gap has been uneven throughout history. Recently, progress toward closure has stalled.
In the past, gender pay gaps could be partially explained by education and occupation. But Ms Goldin has shown that the biggest pay gap is now between men and women in the same jobs. In particular, it begins after the birth of a woman’s first child.
“Claudia Goldin’s discoveries have enormous societal implications,” said Randi Hjalmarsson, committee member and professor of economics at the University of Gothenburg.
Who won the Nobel Prize in Economics 2022?
Last year the prize went to Ben S. Bernanke, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, along with Douglas W. Diamond of the University of Chicago and Philip H. Dybvig of Washington University in St. Louis. They won for their work that has changed the world’s understanding of the relationship between banks and financial crises.
The economics prize was established in 1968 in memory of Alfred Nobel by the Swedish Central Bank and is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.