Claudia Goldin Age, Husband, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Claudia Goldin

Since an early age, she aspired to become an archaeologist; however, after reading the book “Microbe Hunters” (1927) by Paul de Kruif during her junior high school, she aspired to become a bacteriologist.

During her high school, Claudia attended a summer school course in microbiology at Cornell University.

During her sophomore year, she attended a session by an American economist named Alfred Kahn, which led her to pursue economics.

In 1971, she began working as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin and remained till 1973. From 1973 to 1979, she worked as an assistant professor of economics at Princeton University.

In 1979, she became an associate professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania and from 1985 to 1990, she worked as a professor of economics.

In 1990, Claudia joined the economics department at Harvard University and became the first woman to be given tenure in the department.

In 2000, she was appointed as the president of the Economic History Association and the president of the American Economic Association in 2013.

Claudia has served as a member of various organisations including the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Society of Labor Economists, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

She is a member of sections 53 (Social and Political Sciences) and 54 (Economic Sciences) of the National Academy of Sciences.

Claudia Goldin holds many honorary degrees from various universities including the University of Nebraska system, Lund University, the European University Institute, the University of Zurich, Dartmouth College, and the University of Rochester.

In 2015, she began an Undergraduate Women in Economics (UWE) Challenge to reduce the gender gap among undergraduate majors in economics along with Tatyana Avilova.

In 2017, Goldin was the director of the Development of the American Economy (DAE) Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Claudia Goldin is known for her historical work on women and the American economy. Her research covers a wide range of topics, including the female labour force, the gender gap in earnings, income inequality, technological change, education, and immigration.

In 2021, she published a book titled Career & Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity, which was later translated into 15 languages.
Claudia Goldin’s book

Over the years, she has published various research papers on many different topics but her most influential papers have been on topics like the impact of the contraceptive pill on women’s career and marriage decisions, the education of women and men together in higher education, the history of women’s pursuit of career and family, women’s last names after marriage as a social indicator, the reasons most undergraduates are now women, and the new life history of women’s employment.

Later, she began working with Lawrence Katz to research about the history of economic inequality in America and its relationship to educational advances.

They published various research papers on the subject and in 2008, they together published The Race between Education and Technology (2008) in which they claimed that the United States became the world’s richest nation thanks to its schools.

She along with Katz, worked to find out the value of a college education in the labour market through their 2016 paper “The Value of Postsecondary Credentials in the Labor Market: An Experimental Study.”

Goldin also researched on various other topics including the role of the press in reducing corruption, the effect of providing clean water, and effective sewage systems to reduce infant mortality.

In October 2023, she became the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.

In 2024, she became one of the twelve women to be featured in Time magazine’s annual Women of the Year list.

Claudia Goldin is a dog lover and has owned golden retrievers since 1970.
Claudia Goldin with her dog