Published by: Vivek Dubey
Born 1946, New York, USA. PhD from University of Chicago, 1972. Professor at Harvard University.
The prize amount is 11 million Swedish kronor.
Goldin uncovered key drivers of gender differences in the labour market.
Goldin provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labour market participation.
Women are vastly underrepresented in the global labour market and earn less than men.
Goldin collected over 200 years of US data to demonstrate how gender differences in earnings and employment rates have changed.
Female participation in the labour market forms a U-shaped curve, explained by structural change and evolving social norms.
Women’s education levels increased during the 20th century, now substantially higher than for men in most high-income countries.
Access to the contraceptive pill played an important role in accelerating this revolutionary change by offering new opportunities for career planning.
Despite modernisation and economic growth, the earnings gap between women and men hardly closed for a long period of time.
Much of the gender gap in earnings could be explained by differences in education and occupational choices.