A study of wage inequality between women and men won Claudia Goldin the 2023 Nobel economics prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Monday.

In honor of Nobel, the award is called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It is worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or about $1 million.

A statement from the prize-giving body praised Claudia Goldin's work on women's earnings and labour market participation throughout history.

She identifies the main causes and sources of the remaining gender gap in her research."

This is only the third Nobel prize for an economics professor to be a woman, after Goldin became the first tenured professor in Harvard's economics department in 1990.

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Secretary General Hans Ellegren said: "She was surprised and very happy."

A hugely influential study of wage inequality was Goldin's 1990 book "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women".

Studies on the contraceptive pill's impact on women's career and marriage decisions, women's surnames after marriage as a social indicator, and why women are now the majority of undergraduates have been undertaken by her.

"Claudia Goldin's discoveries have vast societal implications," said Randi Hjalmarsson, a member of the Economic Prize committee. "We can pave a better path forward by finally identifying the problem and calling it what it is."