The Indian "One World" news website recently reported that the Nobel Prize Committee has decided to award the Economics Prize to Harvard University professor Claudia Golding, which is a major victory for female economists and economic historians. Golding was the third woman to receive this honor and the first woman to enjoy it alone.
However, breaking the glass ceiling is not new to Golding. She was the first woman to receive a tenured teaching position in the prestigious economics department at Harvard University.
Research has groundbreaking significance
Golding's research on women joining the workforce in history is groundbreaking. She began her academic journey in the revolutionary 1970s. At the peak of the feminist movement, the role of women in the economy rapidly changed.
In her 1998 article "Economist as a Detective," she recalled how her academic passion began: "Women appear in the data when they are young and single, and often when they are widowed. But their stories are rarely heard during marriage because they never produce goods or services
As her doctoral supervisor, Professor Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago played a crucial role in Golding's early academic career. Fogel won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1993, bringing Golding into the field of economic history.
Golding's 1995 paper "Climatometrics and the Nobel Prize" is a tribute to Vogel. She wrote, "They (Fogel and North - co winners) are unique. For them, economic history is not the maid of economics, but a unique academic field." She believed that Fogel gave formal form to economic history, "similar to injecting mathematical models and statistics into other parts of economics.
The uniqueness of Golding's work lies in her ability to view labor and gender through the prism of economic history. By doing so, Golding provided the world with "the first comprehensive description of women's income and labor market participation in centuries".
Although it is difficult to summarize Golding's work in a few paragraphs, her three research papers can provide us with a sufficient understanding of it.
Golding's most famous research paper may be 'The Power of Contraceptives'. This paper traces the impact of contraceptives on women's work and life: contraceptives empower women with reproductive autonomy and enhance their educational and professional freedom.
Another important paper, "The Silent Revolution," speculates that women are increasingly delaying marriage and childbirth in order to devote more energy to higher education and career development. The study also pointed out that since the 1970s, more and more women have entered the fields of medicine, law, and management, while the number of female teachers, librarians, and nurses has begun to decline.
But her most important research is about the gender pay gap. In her 2014 paper "Gender Convergence", she discussed why the wage gap between men and women is not so much a difference in human capital as a labor market reward for long hours of work and punishment for lack of flexibility.
The common theme of all her research work is the meticulous use of historical records - she has collected data from the United States for over 200 years - and quantitative economic methods to understand the past and present.
After winning the prize, she told the Nobel Prize Committee, "I always thought of myself as a detective. Detectives always believed in finding answers." Golding once dreamed of becoming an archaeologist, and she has always been good at conducting investigations. The inaccuracy of archaeology is the result of economics.
Golding used her "detective" skills to uncover economic truth, eliminate misconceptions, and raise gender awareness in the world.
Uncovering the reasons behind gender differences
The Associated Press believes that Golding won the Nobel Prize in Economics because her research helped explain why women around the world are less likely than men to participate in work and earn less money after finding a job.
According to the Associated Press, only about half of women in the world work in paid jobs, while the proportion of men is 80%. Economists believe that this gap is a waste of opportunity: job opportunities often do not fall on the most competent individuals because women either do not participate in competition or are not given sufficient consideration.
In addition, the persistent wage gap - the average income of women in developed economies is about 13% lower than that of men - hinders women from working or continuing to receive education in order to obtain higher-level job opportunities.
Golding, now 77 years old, studied the reasons behind this difference. She found that this is usually caused by decisions made by women regarding their prospects for development in the job market and their family environment. Some women underestimate their employment opportunities, while others feel that family responsibilities make them overwhelmed.
Golding pointed out, "Nowadays, women have a higher level of education than men, a much higher proportion of college graduates, and perform much better in high school than men. Why are these differences happening
She said, "And we realize that although these differences appear in the labor market, they do reflect an individual's internal family situation. This is an interaction between what happens within the family and what happens in the labor market
To understand the reasons behind this, Golding carefully studied labor market data over the past 200 years. This task is a difficult investigation process: women's work usually does not appear in historical records. For example, women who work on farms with their husbands or engage in household workshops such as weaving at home are usually not included in the statistics.
Golding developed a new database using resources such as industrial statistics and historical surveys on how people use time. She found that official records severely underestimated the workload of women.
Golding also found that marriage has proven to be a more serious obstacle to women's employment than previously thought. At the beginning of the 20th century, only 5% of married women worked, while the proportion of all women was 20%. Until the 1930s, married women were often prohibited by law from continuing to work as teachers or office staff. These laws were ultimately abolished.
The birth control pills introduced in 1950 enabled women to develop long-term plans for their education, career, and family. From the 1950s to the mid-1990s, the proportion of American women either having jobs or looking for jobs steadily increased, and it was only after that that that this proportion stabilized.
Salary system determines income differences
As more and more women enter the workforce, the income gap between men and women has narrowed, but it has not disappeared.
Golding compiled data on the gender pay gap over the past two centuries. She found that in the first half of the 19th century and between 1890 and 1930, the income gap between men and women narrowed due to the need for more administrative and civilian personnel in enterprises.
But between 1930 and 1980, despite more women joining the workforce and attending university, efforts to narrow the wage gap stagnated.
Golding identified the primary reason for this: becoming a mother. Once a woman has a child, her salary often decreases, and the growth rate thereafter will not be as fast as that of men, even for women and men with similar educational and professional backgrounds.
Modern salary systems often reward employees for long-term uninterrupted work. Companies usually require employees to be on call and have flexibility in handling overtime until late on weekdays and weekends. This may be difficult for women who typically take on more parenting responsibilities than men.
Golding expressed disappointment that women are less likely to work in the United States than in France, Canada, or Japan. This is in stark contrast to the situation in the 1990s when American women enjoyed the world's highest proportion in the workforce.
She said, "When I see these numbers, I think there is something wrong with the United States. We must ask why this is happening... We must take a step back and ask questions, combining the situation in families, markets, and employment
Golding suggests providing more help for women in balancing parenting and work responsibilities, usually with the help of their partners. She said, "We can share responsibilities equally or create more equal opportunities for couples through various means, which usually leads to a greater degree of gender equality
Golding pointed out another obstacle women face, which is that most children finish school at a certain time in the afternoon. We rarely have work that ends at 3 pm. Therefore, extending school courses is also important, but it requires money
Nevertheless, Golding said, "I am an optimist. I have always been an optimist