1 00:00:00,081 --> 00:00:02,045 - [Claudia] When you do economic research, 2 00:00:02,520 --> 00:00:05,648 you have three pieces. 3 00:00:05,648 --> 00:00:07,348 I think of them as balls 4 00:00:07,348 --> 00:00:10,610 that I want floating up all the time. 5 00:00:10,610 --> 00:00:12,272 I'm juggling them, 6 00:00:12,632 --> 00:00:15,850 and one of them is the idea. 7 00:00:15,850 --> 00:00:17,647 I have to begin with "What's the question, 8 00:00:17,647 --> 00:00:19,327 what's important?" 9 00:00:19,327 --> 00:00:20,838 ♪ [music] ♪ 10 00:00:20,838 --> 00:00:22,139 - [Narrator] Economists -- 11 00:00:22,139 --> 00:00:26,099 not a group with a lot of Marys, Natashas, or Juanitas, 12 00:00:26,099 --> 00:00:28,682 and that's caused a lot of controversy. 13 00:00:28,682 --> 00:00:32,548 However, what's often overlooked are the actual female economists 14 00:00:32,548 --> 00:00:36,323 who are pushing economics forward by addressing real-world issues. 15 00:00:36,881 --> 00:00:39,679 Welcome to Women in Economics. 16 00:00:45,049 --> 00:00:47,226 - [Ilyana] One thing I definitely learned from Claudia 17 00:00:47,226 --> 00:00:49,950 is to approach economic research like a detective. 18 00:00:49,950 --> 00:00:52,684 I think, especially, when working in economic history, 19 00:00:52,684 --> 00:00:55,748 when you can't just download a cleaned-up dataset, 20 00:00:56,372 --> 00:00:59,517 you really have to go searching, open dusty boxes 21 00:00:59,517 --> 00:01:01,269 and look under rocks. 22 00:01:03,771 --> 00:01:07,215 - [Lawrence] She is the consummate economic historian. 23 00:01:07,215 --> 00:01:09,666 She has been the innovator and pioneer 24 00:01:09,666 --> 00:01:13,216 on bringing economic logic, and historical and better data, 25 00:01:13,216 --> 00:01:16,881 to understanding women's role in the economy. 26 00:01:16,881 --> 00:01:19,784 And then she is a fantastic labor economist, 27 00:01:19,784 --> 00:01:23,200 who had been a leader in work on understanding inequality. 28 00:01:26,516 --> 00:01:30,413 - [Narrator] Claudia Dale Goldin was born in 1946 in the Bronx. 29 00:01:31,184 --> 00:01:33,515 She was a problem-solver from the beginning. 30 00:01:34,506 --> 00:01:36,899 As a child, she avoided the New York City heat 31 00:01:36,899 --> 00:01:39,790 by spending her summer days playing cards or reading 32 00:01:39,790 --> 00:01:41,839 in air-conditioned department stores. 33 00:01:42,583 --> 00:01:43,800 And while she always knew 34 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:46,733 she wanted to be a scientist of some kind, 35 00:01:46,733 --> 00:01:49,239 she wasn't always set on economics. 36 00:01:50,517 --> 00:01:51,965 - [Dev] She'll tell stories to me 37 00:01:51,965 --> 00:01:54,898 about when she first went to the Natural History Museum, 38 00:01:54,898 --> 00:01:56,400 when she was living in the Bronx, 39 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:58,023 and fell in love with mummies 40 00:01:59,168 --> 00:02:02,169 and thought that archeology was going to be her passion. 41 00:02:02,598 --> 00:02:04,567 But then she discovered microbiology, 42 00:02:04,567 --> 00:02:07,353 and she suddenly realized that microscopes uncovered 43 00:02:07,353 --> 00:02:10,333 a whole new world of discovery for her. 44 00:02:10,333 --> 00:02:13,750 It wasn't until she actually went to college at Cornell 45 00:02:13,750 --> 00:02:16,202 that she first got introduced to economics. 46 00:02:16,765 --> 00:02:19,049 - [Claudia] I decided to become an economist 47 00:02:19,049 --> 00:02:21,683 because I took an economics class 48 00:02:21,683 --> 00:02:25,084 from an amazing person named Fred Kahn. 49 00:02:25,084 --> 00:02:30,517 He was so excited about the field of industrial organization 50 00:02:30,517 --> 00:02:33,449 and product markets and regulation 51 00:02:33,449 --> 00:02:35,585 that it was infectious. 52 00:02:36,034 --> 00:02:39,101 And in fact, when I went to graduate school 53 00:02:39,101 --> 00:02:40,434 at the University of Chicago, 54 00:02:40,434 --> 00:02:43,846 I went there to study Industrial Organization. 55 00:02:45,900 --> 00:02:48,216 - [Narrator] Under the mentorship of Bob Fogel, 56 00:02:48,216 --> 00:02:51,382 Claudia studied American Economic History, 57 00:02:51,382 --> 00:02:55,933 particularly the economics of slavery and the post-Civil War South. 58 00:02:55,933 --> 00:02:57,934 She had to travel to some southern states 59 00:02:57,934 --> 00:03:00,981 to gather archival materials for this research. 60 00:03:00,981 --> 00:03:04,320 Goldin didn't approach this trip like a traditional economist. 61 00:03:04,833 --> 00:03:06,617 - [Lawrence] She thought what I should do 62 00:03:06,617 --> 00:03:09,915 is hitchhike between the different cities in the south. 63 00:03:09,915 --> 00:03:12,067 She met somebody from one of the archives 64 00:03:12,067 --> 00:03:13,529 who let her stay at their place, 65 00:03:13,529 --> 00:03:14,951 and when she came back, 66 00:03:14,951 --> 00:03:18,468 her advisor asked her for a list of the receipts and expenses 67 00:03:18,468 --> 00:03:19,749 associated with the trip, 68 00:03:19,749 --> 00:03:21,395 and she had no clue 69 00:03:21,395 --> 00:03:24,167 that you were supposed to actually stay in hotels 70 00:03:24,167 --> 00:03:25,867 and pay for actual travel 71 00:03:25,867 --> 00:03:27,883 and that you could get reimbursements. 72 00:03:27,883 --> 00:03:31,419 But in fact, by actually staying with the archivist 73 00:03:31,419 --> 00:03:33,737 and getting access to archives and knowledge 74 00:03:33,740 --> 00:03:35,008 that you wouldn't have had, 75 00:03:35,008 --> 00:03:37,799 it probably created inroads and understanding 76 00:03:37,799 --> 00:03:39,201 that wouldn't have been possible 77 00:03:39,201 --> 00:03:41,389 if you were going through usual channels. 78 00:03:42,451 --> 00:03:45,400 - [Narrator] She continued to focus on economic history, 79 00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:46,833 exploring such questions 80 00:03:46,833 --> 00:03:50,701 as why the North and South had such different economic outcomes 81 00:03:50,701 --> 00:03:52,346 after the Civil War. 82 00:03:53,168 --> 00:03:56,750 - [Claudia] Then I remember thinking that there were interesting aspects 83 00:03:56,750 --> 00:04:01,069 in terms of child labor and families. 84 00:04:01,069 --> 00:04:05,950 It suddenly occurred to me, the main changes in the labor force 85 00:04:05,950 --> 00:04:07,539 had to do with women. 86 00:04:09,576 --> 00:04:10,603 - [Narrator] She realized 87 00:04:10,603 --> 00:04:12,666 that there was a huge story in U.S. history 88 00:04:12,666 --> 00:04:15,301 that was missing from economist scrutiny 89 00:04:15,301 --> 00:04:19,941 and that was the great evolution of women's labor force participation. 90 00:04:21,207 --> 00:04:23,151 - [Claudia] The women who were working -- 91 00:04:23,151 --> 00:04:25,650 from much of the history that I was looking at -- 92 00:04:25,650 --> 00:04:27,635 were young, single women. 93 00:04:27,635 --> 00:04:30,952 But then it morphed into studying how it was 94 00:04:30,952 --> 00:04:36,710 that older married women with families joined the workforce. 95 00:04:37,284 --> 00:04:40,238 - [Narrator] Goldin combined deep archival research, 96 00:04:40,238 --> 00:04:42,002 history, and economics 97 00:04:42,002 --> 00:04:44,085 to conduct study after study, 98 00:04:44,085 --> 00:04:46,017 examining how various dimensions 99 00:04:46,017 --> 00:04:48,568 of women's participation in the U.S. labor force 100 00:04:48,568 --> 00:04:50,697 evolved over 200 years. 101 00:04:51,517 --> 00:04:54,538 - [Ilyana] Goldin's best known for her contributions 102 00:04:54,538 --> 00:04:56,452 to the economics agenda. 103 00:04:56,452 --> 00:04:58,803 She sort of pioneers that area. 104 00:04:58,803 --> 00:05:02,351 - [Lawrence] She has been thinking about things no one had known -- 105 00:05:02,351 --> 00:05:05,417 like why is it that women's jobs 106 00:05:05,417 --> 00:05:08,134 were much more likely to be paid piece rate. 107 00:05:08,134 --> 00:05:09,934 And men's jobs -- 108 00:05:09,934 --> 00:05:13,057 why is money taken away and given to their parents? 109 00:05:13,057 --> 00:05:15,917 The important role for caring for the family 110 00:05:15,917 --> 00:05:18,302 and how that affects the labor market. 111 00:05:18,302 --> 00:05:23,069 She just has a determination to figure out what's true, 112 00:05:23,069 --> 00:05:26,676 to find the new data, to read the historical sources, 113 00:05:26,676 --> 00:05:29,701 to think about what the actual people making decisions. 114 00:05:29,701 --> 00:05:33,235 One of the huge advantages we have as economists, 115 00:05:33,235 --> 00:05:35,684 we can actually read the diaries 116 00:05:35,684 --> 00:05:38,016 of actual people making these decisions 117 00:05:38,016 --> 00:05:39,422 and talk to them and interview them 118 00:05:39,422 --> 00:05:41,035 when we're doing contemporaneous work 119 00:05:41,035 --> 00:05:43,141 or read their inner thoughts. 120 00:05:44,918 --> 00:05:47,818 - [Narrator] As just one example, Goldin's exhaustive research 121 00:05:47,818 --> 00:05:50,568 has led her to identify four phases, 122 00:05:50,568 --> 00:05:52,852 going back to the late 19th century, 123 00:05:52,852 --> 00:05:55,617 that shaped women's role in the U.S. economy. 124 00:05:55,617 --> 00:05:58,116 The first three phases were evolutionary. 125 00:05:58,692 --> 00:06:02,333 While important advances were made through the evolutionary phases, 126 00:06:02,333 --> 00:06:04,153 women also had limited control 127 00:06:04,153 --> 00:06:06,766 over key decisions affecting their employment. 128 00:06:07,497 --> 00:06:08,814 Women in those periods 129 00:06:08,814 --> 00:06:12,305 were more likely to view their working lives as intermittent 130 00:06:12,305 --> 00:06:14,437 and a means to put food on the table. 131 00:06:14,970 --> 00:06:19,143 Then came the quiet revolution, starting in the late 1970s. 132 00:06:19,436 --> 00:06:22,737 Women of the quiet revolution generally viewed their careers 133 00:06:22,737 --> 00:06:25,595 as a significant part of their personal identity 134 00:06:25,595 --> 00:06:28,286 and made their own decisions about their working lives. 135 00:06:28,286 --> 00:06:30,683 Goldin found that this latest phase 136 00:06:30,683 --> 00:06:34,087 was triggered mainly by increased investments in education 137 00:06:34,087 --> 00:06:36,862 and increased availability of contraceptives. 138 00:06:39,035 --> 00:06:40,884 - [Edward] More than any other person, 139 00:06:40,884 --> 00:06:45,836 she has been central in the study of women and work in economics. 140 00:06:45,836 --> 00:06:47,636 She gave it a broad historical sweep. 141 00:06:47,636 --> 00:06:50,383 She tied it to economic theory in a tight way. 142 00:06:50,383 --> 00:06:55,301 Anyone who works on the issue of women and work going forward 143 00:06:55,301 --> 00:06:58,702 will be citing Claudia Goldin and will be influenced by her. 144 00:06:58,702 --> 00:07:00,737 - [Narrator] Working together with Larry Katz, 145 00:07:00,737 --> 00:07:04,711 she's also done critical research about education, technology, 146 00:07:04,711 --> 00:07:07,852 and the extreme dangers of income and inequality. 147 00:07:07,852 --> 00:07:10,019 - [Ilyana] She's among the first to document 148 00:07:10,019 --> 00:07:13,986 what we now think of as a U shape of inequality 149 00:07:13,986 --> 00:07:16,435 over the 20th century. 150 00:07:16,435 --> 00:07:19,184 To this day, economists are still trying to figure out 151 00:07:19,184 --> 00:07:21,404 the determinants of that U shape. 152 00:07:21,404 --> 00:07:23,686 - [Narrator] As the first woman to be offered tenure 153 00:07:23,686 --> 00:07:25,786 in the Harvard Economics Department, 154 00:07:25,786 --> 00:07:27,003 she also takes her role 155 00:07:27,003 --> 00:07:30,486 of mentoring the next generation of economists seriously. 156 00:07:30,486 --> 00:07:32,370 - [Dev] As any graduate student will tell you, 157 00:07:32,370 --> 00:07:34,721 the advisors play a critical role. 158 00:07:34,721 --> 00:07:36,218 It's these personal touches 159 00:07:36,218 --> 00:07:39,386 that make Claudia Goldin such a wonderful advisor -- 160 00:07:39,386 --> 00:07:42,565 whether it's walking her dog, Pika, with her, 161 00:07:43,565 --> 00:07:46,904 receiving midnight texts from her that always make me laugh. 162 00:07:46,904 --> 00:07:49,953 - [Ilyana] She's not always serious -- which is, of course, very important 163 00:07:49,953 --> 00:07:51,863 because if someone's constantly serious, 164 00:07:51,863 --> 00:07:54,736 it's just so intimidating as a student. 165 00:07:55,653 --> 00:07:57,760 - [Narrator] In 2014, Goldin started 166 00:07:57,760 --> 00:08:00,579 the Undergraduate Women in Economics Program -- 167 00:08:01,102 --> 00:08:05,192 a broad initiative to encourage more female economics majors. 168 00:08:05,192 --> 00:08:06,717 - [Ilyana] When doing my best research, 169 00:08:06,717 --> 00:08:09,877 I am reminded of what I learned from Claudia, 170 00:08:09,877 --> 00:08:12,211 and how research can be fun 171 00:08:12,211 --> 00:08:14,889 how it's a mystery that you want to unravel. 172 00:08:15,826 --> 00:08:18,008 - [Edward] She brings a joy to her research. 173 00:08:18,008 --> 00:08:20,376 We were famously called the "dismal science." 174 00:08:20,376 --> 00:08:22,498 Well, certainly when Claudia Goldin does economics -- 175 00:08:22,498 --> 00:08:24,031 it's anything but dismal. 176 00:08:25,423 --> 00:08:27,192 - [Narrator] Want to better understand Goldin 177 00:08:27,192 --> 00:08:29,726 and her contributions to labor economics? 178 00:08:29,726 --> 00:08:32,892 Click here for related materials and practice questions, 179 00:08:32,892 --> 00:08:34,192 or check out other videos 180 00:08:34,192 --> 00:08:37,009 on how economists are tackling all sorts of issues, 181 00:08:37,009 --> 00:08:38,644 ranging from weighty topics, 182 00:08:38,644 --> 00:08:40,811 such as the Great Recession and public health, 183 00:08:40,811 --> 00:08:42,825 to everyday topics, like wine -- 184 00:08:42,825 --> 00:08:44,377 yes, even wine!