17th October, Adam, Marta, Zuzanna

The Nobel Prize in Economics Sciences in 2023

The Nobel Prize in Economics Sciences was established in 1968 by Sweden’s Central Bank
on the occasion of its 300 anniversary. The prize wasn’t mentioned in Nobel’s will, on the
th

contrary to the others from fields of Physics, Chemistry, Psychology or Medicine, Literature
and Peace. They were firstly awarded in 1901. From 1969 to 2023 93 individuals have been
awarded. In this group there are only 3 women. The youngest one – Esther Duflo, a French-
American economist was 46 years old when she was awarded. The oldest laureate, Leonid
Hurwicz, Polish-American economist and mathematician was 90 years old. The most known
laureates of Nobel Prize Economics Sciences are Milton Freedman. Friedrich von Hayek,
Simon Kuznets, James Tobin and John Nash. The prize amount in 2023 is set at 1 million
USD.

Claudia Goldin is an American economic historian and labor economist. She is currently the
Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Goldin's research covers a wide
range of topics, including the female labor force, the gender gap in earnings, income
inequality, technological change, education, and immigration. Most of her research interprets
the present through the lens of the past and explores the origins of current issues of concern.

She is 77 years old and she was born into a Jewish family. Her parents were also thoroughly
educated. As a child she was determined to become an archeologist. It changed after
reading Paul de Kruif’s book: The Microbe Hunters (1927) in junior high school. Influenced
this book, she started to be fascinated with bacteriology and microbiology. She became
fascinated by regulation and industrial organization, the topics that interested Kahn, and she
wrote her senior thesis on the regulation of communications satellites.

Claudia Goldin was awarded by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, according to
sources, “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes”. Her
research highlights the reasons behind changes in gender differences in the labour market
and identifies the primary factors contributing to the existing gender pay gap. It is all about
the fact that women are still underrepresented in the global labour market, and they usually
earn less than men. Goldin’s study, which were based on over 200 years of data collected
from the United States, points out that female participation in labour market didn’t follow a
consistent increase but actually forms a U-shaped curve. It turned out that females
contribution to labour market decreased during the transition from an agrarian to an industrial
society in the 19th century but then began to rise again with the growth of the service sector
in the early 20th century. According to Goldin, this pattern is a result of societal norms and
structural transformations related to women's domestic roles and family responsibilities. In
spite of this modernisation and economic growth, the earning gap between women and men
persists. It is suggested by Goldin that it is caused by expectations of previous generations
and it has to be changed. The progress in closing the gap will be made as soon as women
stop follow the practices of their mothers’ who sacrificed their careers for their children. Due
to Claudia Goldin research, we are more aware and, according to Jakob Svensson, “we
know which barriers may need to be addressed in the future”.

Exercises
1. Fill the gaps

This year’s Laureate in the Economic Sciences, Claudia Goldin, provided the first
comprehensive account of women’s 1._______ and labour market participation through the
centuries. Her 2._______ reveals the causes of change, as well as the main sources of the
remaining gender 3._______. Women are vastly underrepresented in the global 4._______
market and, when they work, they earn less than men. Claudia Goldin has trawled the
archives and collected over 200 years of 5._______ from the US, allowing her to
demonstrate how and why gender differences in earnings and employment rates have
changed over time. Goldin showed that female 6._______ in the labour market did not have
an upward trend over this entire period, but instead forms a U-shaped curve. The
participation of married women decreased with the 7._______ from an agrarian to an
industrial society in the early nineteenth century, but then started to increase with the growth
of the service sector in the early twentieth century. Goldin explained this pattern as the result
of structural change and evolving social norms regarding women’s responsibilities for home
and family. During the twentieth century, women’s education levels continuously increased,
and in most 8._______ countries they are now substantially higher than for men. Goldin
demonstrated that access to the contraceptive pill played an important role in accelerating
this revolutionary change by offering new 9._______ for career planning. 10._______
modernisation, economic growth and rising proportions of employed women in the twentieth
century, for a long period of time the earnings gap between women and men hardly closed.

Words: participation, despite, however, labour, goods, transition, gap, chances, research,
earnings, opportunities, data, although, high – income

2. Match and then find antonyms:

1. gender gap (gender equality)

2. be underrepresented (be represented)
3. vastly (hardly, minimally)
4. upward trend (downswing, downtrend, downward trend)
5. high - income countries (low income countries)
6. economic growth (economic decline)

A. something is increasing in quantity or price

B. to a very great extent
C. an undesirable or unfair difference between men and women in terms of opportunities,
pay, status, etc
D. an increase in the amount of goods and services produced per head of the population
over a period of time
E. those with a large income; gross national income per capita
F. not having as many representatives as would be expected or needed

Additional vocabulary:
 gender gap - a difference between the way men and women are treated in society, or
between what men and women do and achieve
 labour force - all the people in a particular country who are of the right age to work, or
all the people who work for a particular company
 labour market - the supply of people in a particular country or area who are able and
willing to work
 thesis- a long piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one that is done for a
higher college or university degree
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2023/press-release/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Goldin
Films

https://www.youtube.com/watch?embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F
%2Fwww.nobelprize.org
%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjQsMTY0NTAz&feature=emb_share&v=7NFsD3_n124

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U62sf7l0gPs

Question to discuss

Do you agree with the research of Claudia Goldwin?

Have you witnessed gender differences in the labour market?