"Discovery of Drivers Behind Gender Gap in Labor Market" Nobel Economics Prize Awarded to US Professor Goldin of Harvard University

"Over 200 Years of US Labor Data Analysis Research"
Third Female Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences

The honor of this year's Nobel Prize in Economics went to Claudia Goldin (77), a distinguished American female labor economist at Harvard University who has researched gender gaps in the labor market.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' Nobel Committee announced on the 9th (local time) that Professor Goldin would be awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics. The Nobel Committee stated, "The prize is awarded in recognition of advancing our understanding of women's labor market outcomes," and announced that she "uncovered the key drivers of gender gaps in the labor market."

On the 9th (local time), the Nobel Committee announced that Professor Claudia Goldin of Harvard University will be awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics.
[Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

Professor Goldin is a female labor economist who has studied women's careers and family histories, the impact of oral contraceptives on women's careers and marriages, and the reasons why women's college enrollment rates have surpassed men's.

The Nobel Committee explained that Professor Goldin analyzed over 200 years of accumulated data related to the U.S. labor market to examine how income and employment rate gaps between genders have changed over time and identified the causes. The committee praised Goldin for "providing the first comprehensive explanation of women's earnings and labor market participation over centuries."

Born in 1946 in New York, USA, Professor Goldin majored in microbiology at Cornell University and earned her master's and doctoral degrees in economics from the University of Chicago. In 1990, she became the first female tenured professor in Harvard University's Economics Department and served as president of the American Economic Association in 2013. In Korea, she is known as the author of the 2021 book Career and Family (The Long Journey of Women Toward Equality), which addresses the causes and solutions of the gender income gap.

This is the third time a woman has won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Since the prize's inception in 1969, it has been awarded 55 times with a total of 93 laureates to date. The first female laureate was Elinor Ostrom, a professor at Indiana University, who won in 2009 for her research on economic governance. The second female laureate was Esther Duflo, an MIT professor and the youngest ever recipient, who won in 2019.

In addition to the other five categories established according to Alfred Nobel's will, the official name of the Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded since 1969, is the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel."

With the announcement of the Economics Prize winner on this day, all 2023 Nobel Prize laureates have been revealed, starting with the Physiology or Medicine Prize on the 2nd, followed by the Physics Prize on the 3rd, the Chemistry Prize on the 4th, the Literature Prize on the 5th, and the Peace Prize on the 6th. The award ceremonies will be held during "Nobel Week," which includes Nobel's death anniversary on December 10, in Stockholm, Sweden (for Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, and Economics) and Oslo, Norway (for Peace). Laureates receive a gold medal and a cash prize of 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately 1.35 billion KRW).