THE NOBLE PRIZE IN ECONOMICS SCIENCES 2023

By Disha Chauhan
Professor Claudia Goldin of Harvard University has won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics.
“for research that has advanced the understanding of the Gender Gap in the Labor Market.”
She discovered the main causes of gender disparities in the workforce. Claudia Goldin, this
year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, gave the first thorough history of women's
incomes and labor market involvement. Her research identifies the key factors behind the
gender gap that still exists as well as the factors causing change.
Goldin is the third woman to get this recognition. Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson
received the award in 2009, and Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer shared it with Esther
Duflo in 2019.
In the worldwide labor market, women are disproportionately underrepresented and, when
employed, earn lower wages than men. Through extensive research and the collection of
more than 200 years' worth of US data, Claudia Goldin is able to explain how and why
gender disparities in employment rates and incomes have evolved over time.
According to Goldin, there was a U-shaped curve at this time instead of a growing trend in
the number of women entering the workforce. Early in the nineteenth century, married
women's participation fell as society transitioned from an agrarian to an industrial one; but,
as the service sector grew, it started to rise again in the early twentieth century. According
to Goldin, structural change as well as evolving societal norms regarding women's duties in
the house and family are the causes of this tendency. Women's educational attainment
grew steadily during the 20th century, and in the majority of high-income nations, it is
currently significantly greater than that of men. Goldin demonstrated how the contraceptive
pill's accessibility, which opened up new options for career planning, greatly accelerated this
historic change.
The salary gap between men and women barely closed for a considerable amount of time in
the twentieth century, despite modernization, economic progress, and an increase in the
percentage of working women. A portion of the explanation, according to Goldin, is that
choices about schooling are made at a relatively young age and have an impact on a
person's professional options for the rest of their lives. Development will be sluggish if
young women's expectations are shaped by the experiences of earlier generations, such as
their mothers, who waited to return to the workforce until after the children had grown up.
Historically, disparities in educational attainment and career choices have been a major
factor in explaining the gender pay gap. But as Goldin has demonstrated, the majority of this
pay gap currently exists between men and women working in the same profession, and it
mostly starts after a kid is born.
It is critical that society understands the place of women in the work. We now have a lot
more knowledge about the underlying causes and potential future roadblocks because of
Claudia Goldin's groundbreaking research.