Why Women Won

Claudia Goldin

May 8, 2027 | 8 pm

Professor Claudia Goldin was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labor market outcomes.” She will explore how we moved from a world in which discrimination against women was not recognized as an issue, women were routinely and legally fired when they married or became pregnant, and they often couldn’t get a credit card or legally keep their name–– to the world we live in now, however imperfect. Women won workplace and reproductive rights fifty years ago. But why have women never achieved equality in the workplace and equity in their homes, and how can they in a politically fractured nation?

Claudia Goldin is the Samuel W. Morris University Professor and the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. An economic historian and labor economist, her research covers topics including the female labor force, the gender gap in earnings, income inequality, technological change, education, and immigration. Most of her groundbreaking research interprets the present through the lens of the past and explores the origins of current issues of concern. She has held numerous positions in economics, holds many honorary degrees, and is the author of a variety of books and articles. The subject of this talk, Why Women Won, will also be the title of her upcoming book. Professor Goldin’s Nobel biography is a lively account of her life and interests.