Beyond High School - November Edition

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Imagine doing research that transcends disciplines and library shelves. Claudia

Goldin, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2023, spent years solving the

mysterious question around gender wage-gap. She wondered, if men and women do

the same job, why do their paychecks look different?

The conclusions of her discoveries are exceptionally important, and so is her research

methodology. This is where students can draw inspiration from Goldin, as she looks at

various disciplines to arrive at results which help us understand the hidden parts between

what we easily see as black or white.

Using multidisciplinary insights, she discovered how most women who are not paid fairly

often wish to pursue both professional and family goals; this is what she calls the mommy-

track. Their dual ambition compels them to juggle priorities between work and family, due

to unequal distribution of labour between the husband and the wife back home.

Picture Goldin as a detective who used cues from different worlds of history, sociology,

psychology to solve what riddled her - why did women earn less than men? She opened

her toolkit and picked up a variety of tools to join the missing pieces. She wore the

robes of a historian as she went through public records from two centuries. She got on the

field and operated as a sociologist, learning why certain tasks are assigned to specific

genders. She became a student of psychology and uncovered the hidden biases that

compel women to walk on the mommy-track, sometimes deprioritising their careers.

RESEARCH IN FOCUS

THE TOOLS THAT MAKE THE TOOLBOX

Beyond High School | Page 3

Claudia Goldin,

Henry Lee Professor

of Economics,

Harvard University

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