Economist on gender pay inequality wins Nobel Prize

Professor Claudia Goldin has spent four decades studying the changing role of women in the workforce. Photo: HARVARD UNIVERSITY/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/Shutterstock

Harvard professor who discovered that child care is the biggest constraint on women's earnings has won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Claudia Goldin was awarded the prestigious Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Monday Prize in recognition of work that has «advanced our understanding of women's labor market outcomes.»

Her four decades of research have focused on how the role of women in the workforce has changed over time. labor force and how this affected their earnings.

Professor Goldin found that since the outbreak, fewer women have been working outside the home. The Industrial Revolution, but in the 20th century, more women began to move into paid work as education improved and innovations such as the birth control pill allowed for greater control over family planning.

She took aim at the idea that that sexist managers are responsible for most of the gender pay gap, finding instead that it is largely caused by decisions made after having children.

Women typically take on the majority of caregiving responsibilities and therefore require flexible work – effectively depriving themselves of higher paying “greedy jobs” that require working late into the evening, more on weekends and during vacations, she said.

“A greedy job is a job where you have to work late at night, on weekends, or take vacations,” she said in a recent International Monetary Fund podcast.

“And it takes a lot of time.” most of your life. And it's a job that if you couldn't give your whole life to it, you wouldn't work at that job for long. You won't get promoted.

“Not many women go into these greedy jobs precisely because they can't work that many hours, because they have children to take care of, or someone who needs to be taken care of. from.»

Professor Goldin is the third woman to receive the prestigious prize, officially known as the Swedish Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, in memory of Alfred Nobel. The prize includes a payment of SEK 11 million (£820,000).

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said: “By sifting through archives and collecting and correcting historical data, Goldin was able to present new and often surprising facts.

“It also gave us a deeper understanding of the factors that influence women's opportunities in the labor market and how in demand their jobs are.”

“The fact that women were and are often the choice limited marriage, and responsibility for home and family lies at the heart of her analysis and explanatory models.»

Hans Ellegren, the academy's secretary general, said the professor was «surprised and very, very pleased» to receive the award.

The Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded annually since 1969, and has been awarded to 93 people.