RSS
Economics Nobel awarded to Claudia Goldin for work on women in the labor market
(JTA) — Claudia Goldin, a Jewish scholar at Harvard University, won the Nobel Prize for Economics for her work tracking the disparity in earnings for women in the labor market.
“Claudia Goldin has trawled the archives and collected over 200 years of data from the U.S., allowing her to demonstrate how and why gender differences in earnings and employment rates have changed over time, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday in its release.
Goldin, 77, shattered a glass ceiling in 1989 when she became the first tenured tenured women professor in Harvard’s Economics Department. “I think it will be very good for Harvard to have a tenured woman, and I’m pleased to be that woman,” Goldin said at the time, speaking the the campus student newspaper, the Crimson.
Her seminal work, “Understanding the Gender Gap — An Economic History of American Women” published in 1992, sought to prove that opportunity for women in the labor market was less a function of changing social mores or economic growth, than it was susceptible to a variety of factors, including a woman’s age, her education and expectations of mothers.
“Goldin showed that female participation in the labor market did not have an upward trend over this entire period, but instead forms a U-shaped curve,” the Academy said in its release, referring to the 200-year scope of Goldin’s research.
“The participation of married women decreased with the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society in the early nineteenth century, but then started to increase with the growth of the service sector in the early twentieth century,” it said.
At the press conference announcing the award, Jakob Svensson, the chairman of the prize committee, said Goldin helped elucidate why women remain “vastly underrepresented” in the labor market despite being better educated.
“Understanding women’s role in the labor market is important in society, not the least because if women do not have the same opportunity as men, or they participate on unequal terms, labour, skills and talent go wasted,” said Svensson, a professor of economics at Stockholm University. “Thanks to Professor Goldin’s groundbreaking research we know much more about the underlying facts driving women’s labor market outcomes and which barriers may need top be addressed in the future.”
An attempt by the Nobel committee to reach Goldin by phone at the press conference failed. Prize organizers said they had spoken with her earlier and that she was “surprised and glad.”
Goldin’s most recent work, “Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity,” published in 2021, discusses “why true equity for dual career couples remains frustratingly out of reach,” according to Goldin’s Harvard University biography pages.
“Antidiscrimination laws and unbiased managers, while valuable, are not enough,” says Goldin’s precis of her book. “‘Career and Family’ explains why we must make fundamental changes to the way we work and how we value caregiving if we are ever to achieve gender equality and couple equity.”
Goldin, a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science in New York City, has also looked into the historic role of Jews in the marketplace. The authors of a 2003 Boston University paper, “From Farmers to Merchants: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish Economic History,” consulted with Goldin.
A 2001 paper she cowrote for the National Bureau of Economic Research on the tendency of women to retain their surname when married, was based in part on an analysis of wedding announcements in the New York Times in 1991. A third of the religious ceremonies were Jewish, the authors noted, “not surprising given the location” of the newspaper. Religious ceremonies for Jews and for others, they found, were likelier to correlate to women changing their name.
Goldin devotes two pages on her Harvard University biography site to her golden retrievers: Prairie, who died in 2009, and Pika, who is 13. She lists his distinctions, as a therapy dog and as a winner of the Excellent Title in Performance Scent Dogs. Her most recent posting marks his “bark mitzvah.”
Also distinguished is her husband, Lawrence Katz, who is a professor of economics at Harvard.
Among the recipients of last year’s Economics Nobel was Ben Bernanke, the Jewish former chairman of the federal reserve.
—
The post Economics Nobel awarded to Claudia Goldin for work on women in the labor market appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
RSS
Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
RSS
Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.