Claudia Golden.. “Nobel Prize” in Economics
Claudia Golden documented the changing roles of women in society at a time when many male economists did not care. Today, it may seem crazy that male economists once believed that women were irrelevant to important things like macroeconomics….
Betsy Stevenson*
Economics remains a male-dominated profession. Among professors, only one in eight is female. Among assistant professors, the proportion of women is just under 1 in 3, a proportion similar to their share of undergraduate economics majors.
It’s an industry that has struggled to attract women and has struggled to retain women who find it attractive. When Claudia Golden, who has just been awarded the 2023 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, studied economics in the 1960s, first as an undergraduate at Cornell University and then as a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, women were much rarer. The American Economic Association did not officially begin publishing the number of females in this profession until 1972, when women constituted only 7.2% of new doctoral holders and 2.4% of professors.
It must have taken a lot of effort at that time to search the archives and document the facts about “the work and wages of single women, during the period from 1870 to 1920” and “the economic situation of women in the First Republic.” She did not just have to rely on men to read these papers and decide to publish them. She had to rely on the good opinion of men who had studied the business extensively, but she rarely rethought how the food got to the table, how their clothes were taken care of, or how the next generation would be cared for. Golden was documenting the changing roles of women in society at a time when many male economists did not care. Today, it may seem crazy that male economists once believed that women were irrelevant to important things like macroeconomics.
But if it’s confusing to you, it’s because of Claudia Goldin and the army of economists she has trained to see the world differently. Although her work was revolutionary, it built on the work of economists who preceded her, and highlighted how scientists could pave the way for the next generation. Economist Gary Becker returned to the faculty at the University of Chicago while she was a student. He won the Nobel Prize for applying the tools of economics to answer broader questions about human behavior.
Robert Vogel, Golden’s advisor on her doctoral dissertation, won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1993 for “renewed research in economic history through the application of economic theory and quantitative methods to explain economic and institutional change.” Golden took these lessons and expanded on them, giving room for economics to further analyze the richness of women’s lives. But for many years, Golden had to go it alone.
When it came to macroeconomics, women were seen as non-core players, a secondary source of livelihood, something new and not worth studying. Golden saw identity long before the phrase “identity politics” became a slogan. She saw structural barriers long before structural racism entered the mainstream. As an economist, she saw the forces of supply and demand as intertwined with identity and social structure and documented the way these connections shaped women’s choices. As identity and structure changed, those choices also changed.
She has been systematically documenting these changes for decades, even as her colleagues in the profession remained essentially blind to half the population. “The journey toward achieving and then balancing career and family has been ongoing for more than a century,” Golden wrote in her 2021 book, “Career and Family.” For more than 50 years, she has been searching for answers to explain these changes, and has expanded her lens to include more than 200 years of history. This work has helped us think systematically about what led to these changes and what might still stand in our way.
Claudia Golden, Nobel laureate in economics, was one of my thesis advisors. I like to think that I was one of the soldiers trained to think about work and family differently. I often wonder whether I would have stayed with economics if I had not been fortunate enough to be under her tutelage.
In this way, she developed women in economics, student after student, generation after generation, encouraged them to stay in the field, and built advocates for a more comprehensive vision of economics. Winning the Nobel Prize is an acknowledgment that the profession is now experiencing the revolution it has created. Governments around the world realize that the politics that shape the family also shape the economy.
Students around the world study the behavior of women in the workforce as essential to understanding economics. This public celebration of her lifelong achievements is not just a moment of appreciation for what Golden has done, it is a moment for all women to celebrate her, another step towards full citizenship. I hope that this celebration will inspire a new generation of young women to find the economy attractive, and that it will inspire the profession to find more ways to integrate them.
Betsy Stevenson*
*Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Michigan.
Published by special arrangement with the Washington Post Leasing and Syndication Service.
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