As International Women’s Day invites renewed scrutiny of the global struggle for gender equality, Barbara Bergmann’s insights feel more urgent than ever. Her work speaks directly to the ambitions of SDG 8, which calls for inclusive and sustainable economic growth, productive employment, and decent work for all. In this piece, I reflect on her work and scholarship, and how it resonates deeply with my own commitments as a historian, feminist, and economist.
Barbara Bergmann (1927-2015) was a pioneering scholar and one of the founders of feminist economics, she devoted her career to exposing structural discrimination in the American labor market on the basis of race and sex. At a time when mainstream economic theory largely trusted markets to correct inequalities through spontaneous adjustments, she demonstrated that discrimination is not an accidental distortion that markets naturally eliminate. Rather, it is deeply embedded in social norms, institutional practices, racism, and chauvinism. Because discrimination is structurally produced, she argued, it requires deliberate and serious public policy interventions to dismantle racial and gender gaps in employment, wages, and career opportunities.
Bergmann’s work extended beyond labor market discrimination to address the economic vulnerability of single parenthood, often women-led, and urban poverty. Her critique of neoclassical economics was particularly forceful in relation to how it explained gender inequality within households and markets. The dominant models often portrayed traditional family arrangements as efficient outcomes of rational choice, thereby masking power imbalances and systemic disadvantages faced by women. Bergmann rejected these assumptions and insisted on confronting the realities of economic dependence, occupational segregation, and unequal pay.
I recently completed an intellectual biography of Bergmann, published by Palgrave Macmillan. This was motivated by a desire to provide greater visibility to her contributions. Outside feminist economic circles, her work has too often been underestimated by mainstream economists. Yet her analyses remain strikingly relevant. Many of the gender disparities she identified decades ago continue to characterize labor markets worldwide, confirming the urgency of her policy-oriented approach.
Indeed, the global picture of women’s economic participation today reveals persistent and multifaceted gaps. Data consistently show that gender disparities are especially dramatic in the political arena, where women remain underrepresented in decision-making positions across most countries. Economic inequalities persist alongside political ones. Occupational segregation continues to channel women disproportionately into so-called “pink ghettoes”, i.e. traditional care-related sectors such as teaching, nursing, and social services. These sectors are socially indispensable but structurally undervalued, with salaries that tend to be lower than those in male-dominated industries.
The gender wage gap also remains a stubborn reality. A central driver is the double burden borne by many women, who combine paid employment with the majority of unpaid domestic and caregiving work. This dual responsibility constrains career trajectories, limits opportunities for advancement, and makes it more difficult for women to break the glass ceiling and access top positions. The consequences extend beyond immediate earnings: women’s lower lifetime incomes translate into lower pensions and greater economic insecurity in old age.
Another significant gap concerns access to finance and entrepreneurial opportunities. Women who seek to establish businesses often face greater obstacles in securing credit, investment, and institutional support. Financial systems may reproduce implicit biases that question women’s credibility as entrepreneurs or underestimate the profitability of sectors where women are active. At the same time, these disparities are not uniform; they vary across regions, social groups, and institutional contexts. A nuanced analysis requires disaggregated data that account for geographical differences, class, ethnicity, and other intersecting dimensions. Nevertheless, on average, the broad pattern of inequality remains unmistakable.
What makes these economic disparities particularly striking is that they persist despite a remarkable transformation in educational attainment. In many parts of the world, the gender education gap has effectively closed. Women are, on average, as educated as men, and in numerous contexts they outperform men in higher education enrollment and completion rates. This achievement represents a historic milestone. Yet it also intensifies the frustration surrounding persistent economic gaps. If education was once considered the primary barrier to women’s economic advancement, its removal has not produced the level playing field that many anticipated.
Looking ahead, one promising pathway toward greater equality draws inspiration once again from Bergmann’s vision. She advocated what some critics have described as “playing the male game”: entering existing arenas of economic and political power and transforming them from within. Her aim was to construct an androgynous public sphere in which professional norms, career expectations, and leadership models are no longer coded as masculine. Although some feminist scholars have questioned this approach, arguing that it risks reinforcing dominant paradigms, it remains a powerful strategy for change. If women fully occupy spaces traditionally reserved for men, such as corporate boardrooms, political offices, technological industries, the very definition of those spaces may evolve.
At the same time, alternative frameworks, such as commons-based approaches inspired by Elinor Ostrom, offer additional avenues for rethinking economic organization. Ostrom’s work on collective resource management highlights the potential of cooperative governance and community-based solutions to address complex social challenges. In a world marked by inequality and ecological strain, combining institutional reform with innovative forms of collective action may prove especially fruitful.
Global disruptions, such as automation, artificial intelligence, and climate transitions, are reshaping labor markets and affecting human capital and employment structures by challenging traditional models of education and career planning. While these changes are often framed in gendered terms, they are fundamentally altering opportunities and vulnerabilities for all human beings. Nevertheless, women’s historically demonstrated resilience may position them to adapt effectively. As new sectors emerge and others decline, flexibility, continuous learning, and social intelligence will be critical assets.
If we project ourselves ten years into the future, progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 8, decent work and economic growth, should include a significant expansion of women’s participation in innovative and sustainable industries. Data suggest that women are particularly inclined toward social entrepreneurship. This tendency could transform sectors such as tourism, steering them toward more sustainable and community-oriented models. Equally important is the growing presence of young, highly educated women in scientific and technological fields. Their engagement will be essential to transforming the energy sector and advancing environmentally sustainable solutions. At the same time, the eradication of child labor and human trafficking remains an urgent moral and economic imperative. No vision of decent work can be realized while these abuses persist.
For early-career researchers committed to gender and economic justice, the path forward offers both challenges and opportunities. One route involves entering technical and high-impact fields (engineering, mathematics, information technology, and big data) to increase women’s representation in sectors that shape the future of economies. Another path lies in political science and activism, where scholarship intersects directly with public engagement and institutional reform. Both approaches contribute to empowerment: one by transforming the technological frontier from within, the other by reshaping the policy and normative frameworks that govern economic life.