American Professor Claudia Goldin has won the 2023 Nobel Economics Prize for her comprehensive research on women’s contribution to the labor market. Making the announcement today, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2023, officially known as The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, has been awarded to economist Claudia Goldin for advancing the understanding of women’s labour market outcomes.
Claudia Goldin provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labor market participation throughout the centuries. Her research reveals the causes of change and the main sources of the remaining gender gap. She showed that female participation in the labour market did not have an upward trend over a 200 year period, but instead forms a U-shaped curve. The participation of married women decreased with the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society in the early nineteenth century, but then started to increase with the growth of the service sector in the early twentieth century. Goldin explained this pattern as the result of structural change and evolving social norms regarding women’s responsibilities for home and family.
Goldin, a professor at Harvard University, is the 55th recipient of the prestigious award and only she third woman to get the prize that was first presented in 1969.
The announcement of the Nobel Prizes which commenced on 2nd of October, has concluded with the last announcement of the year in the field of Economic Sciences. This followed those in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and peace that were announced last week.
The prizes are handed out at awards ceremonies in December in Oslo and Stockholm.
They carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (about $1 million). Winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and diploma.
