Guwahati: American economic historian and Harvard University Professor, Claudia Goldin has won the Nobel Prize in Economics given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday. She got the highest honour “for her comprehensive research of women’s contribution to the labour market.”
Over the past century, the proportion of women in paid work has tripled in many high-income countries.
This is one of the biggest societal and economic changes in the labour market in modern times, but significant gender differences remain.
It was first in the 1980s that a researcher adopted a comprehensive approach to explaining the source of these differences.
Claudia Goldin’s research has given us new and often surprising insights into women’s historical and contemporary roles in the labour market.
The Academy said, “The fact that women’s choices have often been, and remain, limited by marriage and responsibility for the home and family is at the heart of her analyses and explanatory models. Goldin’s studies have also taught us that change takes time because choices that affect entire careers are based on expectations that may later prove to be false.”
“Her insights reach far outside the borders of the United States and similar patterns have been observed in many other countries. Her research brings us a better understanding of the labour markets of yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
Goldin is the 55th recipient of the Nobel Prize and the third woman to get this award that was first presented in 1969.