According to a statement made on Monday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, American economic historian Claudia Goldin has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics for research on salary disparities between men and women.
The final Nobel Prize of the year, officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is awarded 11 million Swedish crowns, or just under $1 million.
The Academy said, “This year’s Laureate in the Economic Sciences, Claudia Goldin, provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labour market participation through the centuries. Her research reveals the causes of change, as well as the main sources of the remaining gender gap.”
The prize for economics is the last of this year’s Nobel Prizes, which have already included honours for the COVID-19 vaccine, atomic pictures, “quantum dots,” a Norwegian playwright, and an Iranian activist.
Only three women have ever won the Nobel Prize in economics, and Goldin is one of them. She was the first woman to receive tenure in the Harvard economics department in 1990.
Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, remarked that the woman was “surprised and very, very happy.” The investigation of the causes of wage inequality in Goldin’s 1990 book “Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women” had a significant impact.
She has since published studies on topics such as the influence of the contraceptive pill on women’s career and marital decisions, the social significance of women’s surnames after marriage, and the reasons why women currently make up the majority of undergraduate students.
Randi Hjalmarsson, a member of the Economic Prize committee, stated that “Claudia Goldin’s discoveries have vast societal implications. By finally understanding the problem and calling it by the right name, we will be able to pave a better route forward.”
The inaugural economics prize was given out the following year, and previous winners have included many notable academics and philosophers like Milton Friedman, Friedrich August von Hayek, and, most recently, American economist Paul Krugman.
Three American economists, including former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, received awards last year for their work on how to control banks and prevent a financial crisis as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The vast majority of economics prizes have been awarded to males, just like the other Nobel prizes. Only two women have ever received one before: Esther Duflo in 2009 and Elinor Ostrom in 2009.
