Copenhagen, Oct 9 (EFE).- The 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Claudia Goldin “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labor market outcomes,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Monday.
The laureate “has provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labour market participation through the centuries,” the academy said in a statement.
“Her research reveals the causes of change, as well as the main sources of the remaining gender gap,” it added.
American economic historian and labor economist Claudia Goldin has collected and analyzed more than 200 years of data in the US to explain gender differences in both salary and employment rates over time.
“Despite modernisation, economic growth and rising proportions of employed women in the twentieth century, for a long period of time the earnings gap between women and men hardly closed,” the academy said.
For Goldin, part of the explanation is that educational decisions, which have an impact on women’s career opportunities, are made “at a relatively young age.”
“If the expectations of young women are formed by the experiences of previous generations – for instance, their mothers, who did not go back to work until the children had grown up – then development will be slow,” the statement read.
“Historically, much of the gender gap in earnings could be explained by differences in education and occupational choices. However, Goldin has shown that the bulk of this earnings difference is now between (men) and women in the same occupation, and that it largely arises with the birth of the first child,” it underlined.
“Understanding women’s role in the labour is important for society. 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,” Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said. EFE
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