Winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics A renowned economic historian traces women’s
journey to close the gender wage gap and sheds new light on the continued struggle to achieve
equity between couples at home A century ago it was a given that a woman with a college
degree had to choose between having a career and a family. Today there are more female college
graduates than ever before and more women want to have a career and family yet challenges
persist at work and at home. This book traces how generations of women have responded to the
problem of balancing career and family as the twentieth century experienced a sea change in
gender equality revealing why true equity for dual career couples remains frustratingly out of
reach. Drawing on decades of her own groundbreaking research Claudia Goldin provides a fresh
in-depth look at the diverse experiences of college-educated women from the 1900s to today
examining the aspirations they formed—and the barriers they faced—in terms of career job
marriage and children. She shows how many professions are “greedy ” paying disproportionately
more for long hours and weekend work and how this perpetuates disparities between women and
men. Goldin demonstrates how the era of COVID-19 has severely hindered women’s advancement yet
how the growth of remote and flexible work may be the pandemic’s silver lining.
Antidiscrimination laws and unbiased managers while valuable are not enough. 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.
