Claudia Goldin became the third woman to receive the Nobel Prize in economics as the US professor was awarded for her research into the factors that explain pay gaps between men and women.
Goldin will receive a 11 million-krona ($1 million) award, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said in a statement Monday.
“Understanding women’s role in the labor market is important for society,” Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences said in a statement. “Thanks to Claudia Goldin’s groundbreaking research, we now know much more about the underlying factors and which barriers may need to be addressed in the future.”
Born in 1946 in New York, Goldin is a professor at Harvard University who used more than 200 years of data to show that while the the pay gap between men and women historically could be explained by differences in education and occupational choices, it now mainly exists between men and women in the same occupation, and arises with the birth of the first child.
That understanding provides a basis for policymakers around the world to take various actions to address the situation, Randi Hjalmarsson, a professor of economics at the University of Gothenburg told a press conference after announcing the award.
“You can’t treat an illness with a medication without knowing what it is and what causes it,” Hjalmarsson said. “She has provided this underlying foundation that has different policy implications in different countries and different contexts around the world.”
Historically, much of the gender gap in earnings could be explained by differences in education and occupational choices. However, this year’s economic sciences laureate Claudia Goldin has shown that the bulk of this earnings difference is now between men and women in the same… pic.twitter.com/MGWou9hHZx
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2023
Last year’s laureates were Ben Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig for research on banks and financial crises. Previous recipients of the accolade include Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Milton Friedman and Robert J. Shiller.
Three women have now been awarded the prize in economic sciences, following Elinor Ostrom in 2009 and Esther Duflo in 2019.
Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896.
The economic sciences award was added by Sweden’s central bank in 1968, called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
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