Claudia Goldin

Research

Historical trends in women's labor force participation Claudia Goldin's research has transformed the understanding of why women's wages and careers have historically been lower than men's and uncovered key drivers of gender differences in the labour market.

In the book Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (1990), she writes about the evolution of the female labor force in the United States from the late eighteenth century to the late twentieth century, focusing on the issue of gender distinction in the workplace and challenging the common previous understanding that women's employment advances were a response to social revolution rather than long-run economic progress. She demonstrates that the gender wage gap has existed for centuries and has been shaped by social norms, labor market structures, and legal restrictions.

In her working paper "The U-Shaped Female Labor Force Function in Economic Development and Economic History" (1994) Goldin writes about how female labor force participation follows a U-shaped trend. At the beginning, a great number of women work in agriculture, but as industrialization progresses, their participation declines due to social norms and a change of the labor market into more male-dominated sectors. However, as education improves women return to the labor force, hence the U-shape. This framework helps explain historical and cross-country labor trends.

One of her most cited papers, "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter" (2014), underlines how making jobs more flexible would have a great impact on closing the gender gap. While some industries, like technology, science, and healthcare, have embraced more flexible work structures, these changes have been slower to take hold in fields such as corporate business, finance, and law.

Goldin's book Career and Family: Women's Century-Long Journey Toward Equity (2021) is a comprehensive synthesis of her extensive research, examining how societal norms, economic forces, and personal choices intersect and have shaped women's lives and opportunities over the past century. It traces the history of college-educated women dealing with the problem of balancing career and family throughout the twentieth century in the United States, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's careers. In the book, Goldin challenges conventional oversimplified beliefs about the gender gap, that it's all about personal choice, free of any need for policy intervention. She adeptly argues that choices are shaped by the constraints created by society, technology, legal frameworks, and personal expectations.

The role of social and technological change in women's careers The article "The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Career and Marriage Decisions" (August 2002), by Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, highlights how access to birth control revolutionized women's economic opportunities. The pill enables women to delay marriage and childbirth, and allows them to invest in higher education and careers, therefore leading to an increasing labor force participation and professional advancement.

In the article "The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family" (May 2006), Goldin explains how access to birth control, changing aspirations, and workplace policies allowed more women to pursue careers and higher education. Goldin's research identifies a three-phase transformation in women's labor force participation throughout the 20th century, culminating in what she calls the "quiet revolution". In the early phases, few married women worked, and economic growth alone was insufficient to increase their participation. However, societal changes, for example the rise of "nice jobs" that reduced the stereotype of married women working, improved access to education, and the introduction of part-time work, also gradually made employment more attractive. By the third phase, starting in the 1960s, young women began planning careers as they were influenced by the availability of the birth control pill, observing rising divorce rates, and shifting social expectations. This shift led to increasing investment in education and career-oriented fields, and therefore contributed to reshaping the role of women in the labor market, more independent from their husbands.

Other notable work Goldin wrote regarding the American Civil War and slavery. Notably, with the late Frank Lewis, she wrote the groundbreaking piece "The Economic Cost of the American Civil War: Estimates and Implications" (1975). In 1976 her book Urban Slavery in the American South, 1820 to 1860: A Quantitative History was published.

"The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap" (2006), written by Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz, and Ilyana Kuziemko, published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (20), gives an explanation of the societal dynamics behind the gender gap in college enrollment from the 1930s, which reached parity in the 1980s, eventually reversing.

Goldin and Katz wrote about education's interaction with technological advancement in the book The Race Between Education and Technology (2009). The book argues that technological change, education, and inequality have been involved in a kind of race. During the first eight decades of the twentieth century, the increase in educated workers was higher than the demand for them. This boosted income for most people and lowering inequality. However, the reverse has been true since about 1980. This educational slowdown was accompanied by rising inequality. The authors discuss the complex reasons for this, and what might be done to ameliorate it. This book was praised as "a monumental achievement that supplies a unified framework for interpreting how the demand and supply of human capital have shaped the distribution of earnings in the U.S. labor market over the twentieth century", and Alan Krueger of Princeton University said that it "represent[ed] the best of what economics has to offer".

Goldin has also worked on various other topics, including the effect of providing clean water and effective sewage systems on infant mortality, and how the stress of aging can be reduced by Japan and the United States.

Personal life Goldin is married to fellow Harvard economics professor Lawrence F. Katz. She had Golden Retrievers beginning in 1970, and her first one was named Kelso. Pika, her and her husband's Golden Retriever who died in 2024, was widely recognized for his award in competitive scenting, was trained for obedience competitions, and had been a therapy dog at a local nursing home. She often presents her ideas to her dogs out loud as part of her process in working out possible models and writing results. 1991: Allan Sharlin Memorial Book Award from the Social Science History Association 2005: Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the American Economic Association 2008: R.R. Hawkins Award, The Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers 2009: Jacob Mincer Award from the Society of Labor Economists 2009: The John R. Commons Award 2016: IZA Prize in Labor Economics "for her career-long work on the economic history of women in education and the labor market" 2020: Clarivate Citation laureate in Economic Sciences 2020: Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics 2022: Visionary Award from the Council for Economic Education 2023: Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2024: One of twelve women included in Time magazine's annual Women of the Year list 2024: Chosen by Miriam's Cup, which as of 2024 annually "recognizes a Jewish woman of achievement."

Selected works Goldin, Claudia Dale. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Goldin, Claudia Dale et al. Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Goldin, Claudia Dale and Gary D. Libecap. Regulated Economy: A Historical Approach to Political Economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Bordo, Michael D., Claudia Dale Goldin, and Eugene Nelson White. The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Glaeser, Edward L. and Claudia Dale Goldin. Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Goldin, Claudia Dale and Lawrence F. Katz. The Race Between Education and Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008. Goldin, Claudia and Alsan, M. "Watersheds in Child Mortality: The Role of Effective Water and Sewerage Infrastructure, 1880 to 1920", Journal of Political Economy 127(2, 2018), pp. 586–638 Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence F. Katz. Women Working Longer: Increased Employment at Older Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Goldin, Claudia. Career & Family: Women's Century-Long Journey toward Equity. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press, 2021. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," American Economic Review 104 (April 2014), pp. 1091–119.

Political views In December 2018, Goldin commented on growing political divide by citing historical rises in unrest during periods of increased income and wealth inequality, and claims from 1894 that income taxes would begin a war between the rich and the poor.

In 2025, Goldin said she was concerned about the administration of Donald Trump removing and misusing government data.