View: Nobel prize for Claudia Goldin will hopefully force more focus on gender gaps

Goldin’s path-breaking research showed that female participation in the labour market decreased with the transition 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 that this change came about because of a change in social norms and medical advances. For instance, access to the contraceptive pill played a revolutionary role in helping women plan their careers.

Social acceptance of family planning helped, but the gender gap continued due to the influence of parents and family. According to Goldin, part of the explanation for the gender gap is that educational decisions, which impact a lifetime of career opportunities, are made at a relatively young age. Often expectations of young women are formed by the experiences of previous generations — for instance, their mothers, who did not go back to work after the birth of children.

Harvard University, where she teaches lists over 80 research papers from Goldin covering a wide swathe of issues related to the nature of women’s employment and compensation.

Her recent books include:

1)Women Working Longer—Increased Employment at Older Ages Edited by Goldin along with Lawrence F. Katz and published by University of Chicago Press, 2018.

2)The Race Between Education and Technology written by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, published by Harvard University Press, 2008

During the twentieth century, women’s education levels continuously increased, and in most high-income countries they are now substantially higher than for men, Goldin proves in some of her papers. Her latest book published in 2021 by Princeton University Press titled “Career & Family: Women’s Century Old Journey Toward Equity” tackles what is holding women back from equal pay even after better education than men. The book shows how many professions are “greedy,” paying disproportionately more for long hours and weekend work, and how this perpetuates disparities between women and men.

The book includes her work during the Covid years when she says women suffered because daycares and schools closed. Goldin says COVID-19 impacted women’s employment and labor force participation more relative to men. But the big divide was less between men and women than it was between the more- and the less-educated. The more educated could work from home. The less educated in service jobs lost.

Contrary to many accounts, she proves that women did not exit the labor force in large numbers, and they did not greatly decrease their hours of work. The aggregate female labor force participation rate did not plummet. The real story of women during the pandemic concerns the fact that employed women who were educating their children, and working adult daughters who were caring for their parents, were stressed because they were in the labor force, not because they left

Goldin concludes that book with the hope that the acceptance of remote working may be the pandemic’s silver lining, But that’s not enough. Career and Family explains why we must make fundamental changes to the way we work and how we value caregiving if we are ever to achieve gender equality and couple equity.

One hopes that the award of the ultimate prize to Goldin will force employers, governments and societies to discuss and consider Goldin’s advice and ensure a better blend of work ethic and caregiving.