WEBVTT

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When you do economic research,
you have three pieces.

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I think of them as balls

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that I want floating up
all the time.

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I'm juggling them,

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and one of them is the idea.

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I have to begin with
"What's the question,

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what's important?"

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- [Narrator] Economists!

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Not a group with a lot
of Marys, Natashas, or Juanitas,

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and that's caused
a lot of controversy.

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However, what's often overlooked
are the actual female economists

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who are economics forward
by addressing real world issues.

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Welcome to Women in Economics.

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- [Ilyana] One thing I definitely
learned from Claudia

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is to approach economic
research like a detective.

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I think, especially,

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when you're working
with economic history,

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when you can't just download
a cleaned-up dataset.

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You really have to go searching
open, dusty boxes

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and look under tocks.

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- [Lawrence] She is the consummate,
economic historian.

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She has been
the innovator and pioneer

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on bringing economical logic
and historical and better data

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to understanding
women's role in the economy,

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and then she is a fantastic
labor economist,

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who had been a leader on work
on understanding inequality.

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Claudia Dale Goldin was born
in 1946 in the Bronx.

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She was a problem-solver
from the beginning.

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As a child, she avoided
the New York City heat

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by spending
her summer days playing cards

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or reading in air-conditioned
department stores.

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And while she always knew

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she wanted to be
a scientist of some kind,

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she wasn't always set on economics.

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She'll tell stories to me

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about when she first went
to the Natural History Museum

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when she was living in the Bronx

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and fell in love with mummies

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and thought that archeology
was going to be her passion.

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But then she discovered
microbiology,

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and she suddenly realized
that microscopes uncovered

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a whole new world
of discovery for her.

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It wasn't until she actually went
to college at Cornell

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that she first got introduced
to economics.

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I decided to become an economist

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because I took an economics class

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from an amazing person
named Fred Kahn.

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He was so excited about the field
of industrial organization

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and product markets and regulation

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that it was infectious.

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And in fact, when I went
to graduate school

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at the University of Chicago,

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I went there to study
Industrial Organization.

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Under the mentorship of Bob Fogel,

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Claudia studied
American Economic History,

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particularly the economics of slavery
and the post civil war south.

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She had to travel
to some southern states

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to gather archival materials
for this research.

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Goldin didn't approach this trip
like a traditional economist.

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She thought what I should do

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is hitchhike between
the different cities in the south.

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She met somebody
in one of the archives

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who let her stay at their place,

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and when she came back,

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her advisor asked her for a list
of the receipts and expenses

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associated with the trip,

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she had no clue that you were
supposed to actually stay in hotels

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and pay for actual travel,

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and you could get reimbursements.

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By actually staying
with the archivists

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and getting access to archives

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and knowledge that
you wouldn't have had,

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it probably created [ ]
and understanding

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that wouldn't have been possible

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if you were going through
usual channels.

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- (Narrator ) She continued
to focus on economic history,

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exploring such questions

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as why the north and south
had different economic outcomes

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after the Civil War.

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Then I remember thinking
that there were interesting aspects

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in terms of child labor
and families.

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It suddenly occurred to me
the main changes in the labor force

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had to do with women.

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- [Narrator] She realized

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that there was
a huge story in US history

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that was missing
from economist scrutiny.

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and that was the great evolution
of women's labor force participation.

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The women who were working,

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from much of the history
that I was looking at,

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were young, single women.

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But then it morphed
into studying how it was

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that older married women
with families joined the workforce.

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Goldin combined
deep archival research,

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history, and economics

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to conduct study after study,

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examining how various dimensions

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of women's participation
in the US labor force

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evolved over 200 years.

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Goldin's best known
for her contributions

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to the economic subgender.

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She sort of pioneers that area.

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- [ ] She has been thinking
about things that no one had known,

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like why is it that women's jobs

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were much more likely
to be paid piece rate,

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and men's jobs,

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why is money taken away
and given to their parents,

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the important role
in caring for the family

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and how that affects the labor market.

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She just has a determination
to figure out what's true,

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to find the new data,
to read the historical sources,

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to think about what
the actual people making decisions.

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One of the huge advantages
we have as economists,

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we can actually read the diaries

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of actual people
making these decisions

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and talk to them and interview them

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when we're doing
contemporaneous work

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or read their inner thoughts.

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- [Narrator] As just one example,
Goldin 's exhaustive research

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has lead her
to identify four phases,

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going back to the late 19th century

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that shaped women's role
in the US economy.

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The first three phases
were evolutionary.

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While important advances were made
through the evolutionary phases

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women also had limited control

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over key decisions
affecting their employment.

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Women in those periods

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were more likely to view
their working lives as intermittent

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and a means to put food
on the table.

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Then came the quiet revolution,
starting in the late 1970s.

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Women of the quiet revolution
generally viewed their careers

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as a significant part
of their personal identity

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and made their own decisions
about their working lives.

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Goldin found that this latest phase

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was triggered mainly by
increased investments in education

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and increased availability
of contraceptives.

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- [Edward] More than
any other person,

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she has been central in the study
of women and work in economics.

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She gave it a broad,
historical sweep,

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she tied it to economic theory
in a tight way.

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Anyone who works on the issue
of women and work going forward

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will be citing Claudia Goldin
and will be influenced by her.

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Working together with Larry Katz,

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she's also done critical research
about education, technology,

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and the extreme dangers
of income and inequality.

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- [ ] She was among
the first to document

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what we now think of
as a U- shape of inequality

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over the 20th century.

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To this day, economists
are still trying to figure out

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the determinants of that U-shape.

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- [Narrator] As the first woman
to be offered [ ]

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in the Harvard Economics Department,

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she also takes her role

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of mentoring the next generation
of economists seriously.

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- [ ] As any graduate student will tell you,

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advisors play a critical role.

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It's these personal touches

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that make Claudia Goldin
such a wonderful advisor.

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Whether it's walking
her dog, Pika, with her,

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receiving midnight texts from her
that always made me laugh.

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- [ ] She's not always serious,

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which, of course, is,
I think, very important

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because if someone's
constantly serious,

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it's just so intimidating
as a student.

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In 2014, Goldin started

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the Undergraduate Women
in Economics Program --

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a broad initiative to encourage
more female economics majors.

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- [ ] When I'm doing
my best research,

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I am reminded
what I learned from Claudia,

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and how research can be fun

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and how it's a mystery
that you want to unravel.

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- [ ] She brings a joy
to her research.

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We were famously called
the "dismal science."

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It was certainly when
Claudia Goldin does at economics

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isn't anything but dismal.

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- [Narrator] Want to better
understand Goldin

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and her contributions
to labor economics?

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Click here for related materials
and practice questions,

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or check out other videos

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on how economists
are tackling all sorts of issues,

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ranging from weighty topics,

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such as the Great Recession
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to everyday topics, like wine--

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yes, even wine!