Claudia Goldin Wins Nobel in Economics for Studying Women in the Work Force

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded on Monday to Claudia Goldin, a Harvard professor, for advancing the world’s understanding of women’s progress in the work force with her research.

The Nobel committee announced the award in Stockholm. Ms. Goldin is the third woman to have won the economics Nobel, and the first one to be honored with it solo, rather than sharing in the prize. She has long been a groundbreaking woman in the field — she was the first woman to be offered tenure in Harvard’s economics department, in 1989.

Who is the winner?

Claudia Goldin, 77, is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. She has written and edited several books, and her most recent is “Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity,” published in 2021.

Why did the committee say they received the prize?

The committee praised Ms. Goldin for her research into female employment, which has showed that women’s employment levels decreased in the 1800s before increasing in the 1900s. She has also showed that the process of closing the gender wage gap has been uneven, even though there has been progress over time.

By looking at more than 200 years of labor market outcomes in the United States, Ms. Goldin brought historical trends to bear on lingering issues in the U.S. job market.

“Claudia Goldin’s discoveries have vast societal implications,” said Randi Hjalmarsson, a member of the committee and professor of economics at the University of Gothenburg.

Who won the 2022 Nobel for economics?

Last year, the award went to Ben S. Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chair, along with Douglas W. Diamond of the University of Chicago and Philip H. Dybvig of Washington University in St. Louis. They won for work that has reshaped how the world understands the relationship between banks and financial crises.

The economics prize was established in 1968 in memory of Alfred Nobel by Sweden’s central bank and is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Who else has won a Nobel Prize this year?