Claudia Goldin Awarded Nobel Prize in Economics for Groundbreaking Research on Gender Pay Inequality

Claudia Goldin, an American economic historian, has been awarded this year's Nobel economics prize for her research on women's employment and pay. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences highlighted Prof Goldin's work in uncovering the key factors behind the gender pay gap. She is the third woman to receive the prize, but the first to win it without sharing it with male colleagues. Currently teaching labour market history at Harvard University, Prof Goldin's analysis of 200 years of US workforce data has provided valuable insights into the changing dynamics of gender differences in earnings and employment rates. The academy praised her for advancing our understanding of women's labour market outcomes and shedding light on the causes and remaining sources of the gender gap. Though primarily recognized for her economic research, Prof Goldin also maintains a blog on her website about her golden retriever named Pika. Established in 1968 and funded by the central bank of Sweden, the economics prize differs from the other Nobel prizes, which were established by Alfred Nobel himself. The first woman to win the economics prize was Elinor Ostrom in 2009, alongside Oliver E Williamson, for their research on economic governance. In 2019, Esther Duflo shared the award with her husband Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer for their work on poverty-stricken communities in India and Kenya.