AFP, Stockholm

The Nobel prize in economics was awarded to American economist Claudia Goldin yesterday for research that has helped bring understanding to the role of women in the labour market.

The 77-year-old Harvard professor, who is the third woman to be awarded the prestigious economics prize, was given the nod “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes,” the jury said.

The Nobel is a “very important prize, not just for me, but for the many people who work in this field and who are trying to understand why there is so much change, but there are still large differences” in pay, Goldin told AFP in a telephone interview after the announcement.

By studying the history of women in the United States workforce, Goldin demonstrated factors that have historically influenced, and in some cases still influence, the supply and demand for women in the labour force, the jury explained.

“She has demonstrated that the sources of the gender gap change over time,” Nobel committee member Randi Hjalmarsson told a press conference.

Hjalmarsson added that while Goldin had not studied policy, her work had provided an “underlying foundation” that had different policy implications around the world.

Globally, about 50 percent of women participate in the labour market compared to 80 percent of men, but women earn less and are less likely to reach the top of the career ladder, the prize committee noted.

The Nobel prize in economics has the fewest number of women laureates, with just two others since it was first awarded in 1969. They were Elinor Ostrom in 2009 and Esther Duflo in 2019 -- and Goldin is the first woman to receive the prize as the sole laureate.