Technological progress is a key source of economic growth, but its consequences are not always fully reflected in gross domestic product. Sometimes a new technology changes everything: the way we work, the way we live, the way we interact in society. Let’s think, for example, of the effect of the birth control pill. If it has never occurred to you that modern contraception is a transformative technology or, more broadly, that expanding women’s choices has profound economic and social impacts, you are far from alone.
Countless books and articles have been written about the effects of globalization and information technology on the economy, for example. But when Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz published an article in 2002 called “The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Marriage and Career Decisions,” they entered a sparsely populated field.
On Monday, Goldin, a Harvard professor, received the Nobel Prize in Economics in recognition of her contributions to understanding women’s outcomes in the labor market. It was a well-deserved honor. If you ask me, the Nobel Prize announcement was actually somewhat unfair to Goldin, as it did not highlight her very important contributions beyond the topic of women’s work. In particular, there was no mention of his work on inequality in general, particularly his role in documenting the sudden and dramatic decline in inequality that occurred in the 1940s, which created the middle-class society in which I grew up (now destroyed).
But that doesn’t mean that women’s work is a minor issue. It is an extremely important topic that Goldin pioneered in exploring. To put it this way: For most of the 1960s, American women in the prime of their careers were less than half as likely as men to be in the paid workforce; By 2000, three-quarters of the gender gap in labor force participation had been eliminated.
This meant a sharp increase in the economy’s labor supply and therefore potential gross domestic product; My retrospective calculations show that the effects of increased female employment on economic growth are comparable to the effects of globalization, for example.
But the impact on GDP was only part of the story. In 2006, Goldin published an extraordinary survey of the history of working women in the United States. As she showed, the share of women in the paid workforce rose steadily between 1930 and 1970, an increase that Goldin attributed to the combination of the economy’s shift from manual labor to clerical work and improvements in women’s education. , along with the widespread adoption of household technologies such as refrigerators and washing machines, which allowed more married women to work outside the home.
But in her opinion, these changes initially did not change the idea that society and women themselves had of female work. Women were largely seen as secondary earners who worked to supplement their family’s income, but were willing to give up working life if they had children or their husbands earned so much that they didn’t need the money.
Around 1970, however, a “quiet revolution,” as Goldin called it, occurred in the economic role of women, who began to view work similarly to men. They saw the possibility of continuing to work after marriage, which led them to become more educated, marry later and, as men had always done, see their work as an important part of their identity. This meant a profound change in society, I would say for the better.
And a key facilitator of this transformation was the birth control pill, which allowed women to delay marriage, which in turn, as Goldin wrote, meant that “they could take college more seriously, plan an independent future, and shape their life identities.” before you get married and start a family.” Nevertheless, we should not accept gross technological determinism. Goldin and Katz pointed out that the pill only had its most profound effect when legal restrictions that made it unaffordable for most single women were lifted in the late 1960s. Goldin’s latest work is titled Why Women Won [por qué ganaron las mujeres]and underlines the importance of the great expansion of women’s rights between 1965 and 1973.
And as I reviewed Goldin’s work for this column, I couldn’t help but wonder whether those victories are in jeopardy.
Much of the commentary I have seen about Goldin since the Nobel Prize announcement has focused on the prospects of removing the barriers that still stand in the way of women’s advancement. But in the current political environment, I think we should also be afraid of backlash. Conservatives succeeded in overturning Roe vs. Wade [sobre el derecho a abortar], and many red states have rushed to ban abortion. A significant group is now proposing to restrict access to birth control, and it is unlikely that this will not happen.
Aside from the omens, however, this is a wonderful time for the business profession. Goldin’s groundbreaking research, deeply rooted in history but enormously relevant to the present, is a model for what social science should be. This is truly a Nobel Prize that deserves to be celebrated.
Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics. © The New York Times, 2023. Translation of news clips
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