Nobel Prize in Economics awarded for research into the role of women in the labor market

The Nobel Prize in Economics will be awarded to American Claudia Goldin for “improving understanding of the situation of women in the labor market,” the Nobel committee said. As stated in press release on the committee’s website, Ms. Goldin “revealed the key reasons for gender disparities in the labor market.”

It is clarified that she presented the first comprehensive report on women’s earnings and their participation in the labor market over several centuries. To do this, Claudia Goldin examined archives and collected data from the United States over more than 200 years, allowing her to show how and why gender differences in income and employment rates have changed over time.

Her research, in particular, reveals the reasons for change, as well as the main sources of the persistent gender gap. Among other things, women’s career opportunities were affected by “the development of social norms regarding women’s responsibilities in the home and family.” “Women’s educational attainment has increased over the course of the twentieth century, and in most high-income countries it is now substantially higher than that of men. Goldin demonstrated that access to birth control played an important role in accelerating these revolutionary changes, offering new opportunities for career planning,” the press release noted.

However, despite modernization, economic growth, and an increase in the proportion of women in the workforce in the twentieth century, “the income gap between women and men has remained largely stagnant for a long period of time.” According to Claudia Goldin, this is partly because “education decisions that affect career opportunities are made at a relatively young age.” “If young women’s expectations are shaped by the experiences of previous generations—for example, their mothers who did not return to work until their children were grown—then development will be slow,” she explained.

Historically, much of the gender income gap has been attributed to differences in education and occupational choice. However, as Ms. Goldin’s research found, these days, “the bulk of these earnings differences occur between women in the same occupation, and they mostly occur with the birth of their first child.”

The news is being updated.