Globally, women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn, according to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. At the current rate of change, it will take 70 years to achieve earnings equality. In the United States specifically, the picture is broadly similar.
Such disparities have become a subject of keen interest for many economists, thanks in part to the work of Harvard’s Claudia Goldin, who received her PhD at the University of Chicago and who won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her research into labor-market outcomes for women. To explore some of the themes of Goldin’s research, including the career impact of bearing and rearing children, Chicago Booth’s Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets polled its US and European panels of economic experts.