On October 9, 2023, a momentous achievement in the field of economics was made; Dr. Claudia Goldin became the first solo woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. Dr. Claudia Goldin, an American historian and labor economist who is currently an economics professor at Harvard University, has made significant contributions to economics through her research in the gender pay gap and labor force participation.  

Although Dr. Goldin has made major strides in economics, her research, ironically, looks at how women have lagged behind men in their pay and workforce engagement. She has proven that this is not their fault—women have not had autonomy over where and when they work. Largely, the American workforce is to blame. Workers have been getting paid more for longer and inflexible, putting women at a disadvantage after they have children. Goldin’s research has shown that women often leave their jobs permanently after maternity leave as fulfilling long hours becomes difficult with a child. She has also disproved the common assumption that the gender pay gap exists due to women choosing lower-paying jobs by demonstrating that the highest pay jobs is where the most stark difference in income between men and women lies. 

Historically, economics has been a predominantly male dominated field and women’s contributions have gone unrecognized. The Nobel Prize for economics has been awarded to 90 men and only three women. Additionally, only 24% of tenure-track faculty for economics is made up by women while women make up 43% of tenure-track faculty for the rest of academia. 

However, Dr. Goldin has been a trailblazer for other women in the field of economics. Through her own research, she has made it acceptable to pursue nontraditional topics such as women’s participation in the labor market and their role in the economy. Dr. Goldin’s ability to persevere in a field in which she lacked support from her colleagues and constantly felt isolated is remarkable. Due to her sacrifices, she has paved the way for other women and helped revolutionize economics to be less patriarchal. Her work on gender inequality has sparked conversations that will hopefully highlight women’s accomplishments and give them the recognition they deserve for their work in economics. 

In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Goldin said that she hoped people would take away from her work how important long-term changes are to understanding the labor market. “We see a residue of history around us,” she said, explaining that societal and family structures that women and men grow up in shape their behavior and economic outcomes.

“We’re never going to have gender equality until we also have couple equity,” she said. While there has been “monumental progressive change, at the same time there are important differences” which often tie back to women doing more work in the home.

Asked about what it meant for a woman to win the economics award on her own, Dr. Goldin said it marked a sort of “culmination” after years of “important changes” toward more gender diversity in the field.