Claudia Goldin wins Nobel for ‘detective’ work on women in labour market, discoveries that ‘have vast societal implications’
- The Nobel season winds up with the Economics Prize going to only the third woman ever to win the category since it was launched in 1968
- Nobel committee member Randi Hjalmarsson called Goldin a ‘detective’ and said she
The Nobel Economics Prize was on Monday awarded to American economist Claudia Goldin for her research that has helped understand the role of women in the labour market.
The 77-year-old Harvard professor, who is the third woman to be awarded the prestigious economics prize, was given the nod “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes,” the jury said.
“Claudia Goldin’s discoveries have vast societal implications”, said Randi Hjalmarsson, member of the Economic Prize committee. “By finally understanding the problem and calling it by the right name, we will be able to pave a better route forward”.
Globally, about 50 per cent of women participate in the labour market compared to 80 per cent of men, but women earn less and are less likely to reach the top of the career ladder, the prize committee noted.
The Nobel Prize in economics has the fewest number of women laureates, with just two others since it was first awarded in 1969 – Elinor Ostrom in 2009 and Esther Duflo in 2019.
Goldin has “trawled the archives and collected over 200 years of data from the US,” the jury said.
