What research is carried out at Corvinus University on the subject of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics?

US economic historian and labour economist Claudia Goldin, a professor at Harvard University, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics for her groundbreaking research on women in the labour market. In this context, Péter Isztin, assistant professor at the Institute of Economics of the Corvinus University of Budapest co-authored an article with Anna Adamecz, senior research fellow at the HUN-REN KRTK Institute of Economics and researcher at the UCL Social Research Institute, in which they explained the significance of the topic and how Goldin contributed to what we know about the situation of women in the labour market. The article published on the leading Hungarian economic portal Portfolio on 12 October entitled “Nobel Prize for the age-old question: Why do women earn less than men?” emphasizes that “the biggest pay disadvantage affects women with children (…) The gender pay gap is narrowing on average. However, it mainly occurs in lower positions, but not in more senior positions.” The article also looks at what is required to further reduce gender gaps in the labour market: the income loss from flexible working needs to be reduced, quality day childcare should become cheaper, and social attitudes must change. 

Gender inequalities in the labour market have been studied by several researchers at Corvinus University as well, and it is useful to find out about the Hungarian results too. Virág Ilyés, a postdoctoral fellow at the Corvinus CIAS NeTI Lab claims that professional relationships are extremely important in the labour market and can play a crucial role in generating gender gaps. In April this year, she was awarded the opportunity of delivering the prestigious Tamás Roska Lecture in Economics, a biannual recognition by the National Council of Students’ Research Societies for a selected candidate. On this occasion we published an interview with the winner of the award on our website. In the interview it was said: “On the pay gap it is worth noting that in Hungary (according to Eurostat data for 2021) the gender gap in average gross earnings is 17.3 percent in favour of men, compared to the EU average of only 12.7 percent. (…) Most of the difference still occurs within the companies.” The researcher said that pay differences were also influenced by personal characteristics, the network of relationships and the career paths taken by the individual. 

On 24 October, at 19.10 the Széchenyi István College of Advanced Studies  operating at Corvinus will hold a professional event open to the university community featuring a discussion with Beáta Nagy, Professor of the Department of Sociology at Corvinus University on  the Nobel Memorial Prize. The details of the event will be announced soon in the Events section. 

Every year the university hosts a conference on the subject of the recent Nobel Prize in Economics, organised by the Economic Science Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, with several Corvinus researchers delivering presentations. The exact date of the event will also be available on our website. An article on last year’s Nobel Memorial Prize event can be accessed here. Also, the Corvinus Library organised an exhibition with information about the work of the Nobel Laureates.