The following is an extended version of the story that appears in our latest print edition.

 

The Bronx High School of Science has congratulated the school’s Hall of Famer Claudia Goldin, Class of 1963, on winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. Described by the school as a trailblazer throughout her career, Goldin is currently the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University’s economics department, and was the first woman to be offered tenure in that department.

 

According to the school, her research focuses on the female labor force and economic inequality. An economic historian, school officials said Goldin’s research looks throughout history to understand and explain current issues. They said she is only the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics and the first to be awarded as an individual, not as part of a group. They said Goldin is the ninth Bronx Science alum to win the Nobel Prize.

 

Reacting to her win, which was announced in October, Goldin, who once lived in the Parkchester section of The Bronx, said during a recorded video segment for Harvard University following her win that she was very honored and that there were many people she wished to thank. “At the very top of the list, I thank those who have shown me by what they do and by how they think, the importance of really big ideas in history, and the enormous importance of long-term change.”

She continued, “I have worked very hard to try to change the representation of women in economics.” Goldin said she has often been asked what she has benefited from in terms of women entering the field of economics. “What I’ve benefited from the most is the ability to work with women,” she said.

 

Goldin added, “I am a teacher. I am a professor. I could never do research without doing teaching. When I teach, I am forced to confront what I think is the truth. I am forced to confront it by telling my students, and they’re pretty smart, and if I don’t know what I’m talking about, they know it!”

 

The Noble Prize winner concluded, saying, “And so, I deeply thank my students who push me to the frontiers of knowledge every day. I could never be where I am today without them, so thank you very much.”

According to her official biography on the website of Harvard University, Goldin is an economic historian and a labor economist, whose research covers a wide range of topics, including the female labor force, the gender gap in earnings, income inequality, technological change, education, and immigration. Most of her research interprets the present through the lens of the past and explores the origins of current issues of concern. Her most recent book, among others, is Career & Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity (Princeton University Press, 2021).

 

She is best known for her historical work on women in the U.S. economy. Her most influential papers in that area have concerned the history of women’s quest for career and family, coeducation in higher education, the impact of the “pill” on women’s career and marriage decisions, women’s surnames after marriage as a social indicator, the reasons why women are now the majority of undergraduates, and the new lifecycle of women’s employment.

 

Goldin was the director of the Development of the American Economy program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) from 1989 to 2017. She is currently a co-director of NBER’s Gender in the Economy group. Her full bio can be read here.

 

Goldin shared with Norwood News a childhood photo of herself as a toddler growing up in Parkchester (attached) and said of her Nobel Prize win, “The award means much to me – but even more so because it means so much to many others who feel that their work has been validated. The award has been magnified many times over by its reception all across the world.”