Stone Inequality & Social Policy Seminar: Joshua Gottlieb
Date and Time
Location
The Rise of Healthcare Jobs
Joshua Gottlieb, Professor, The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
Abstract: Healthcare employment has grown more than twice as fast as the labor force since 1980, overtaking retail trade to become the largest industry by employment in 2009. We document key facts about the rise of healthcare jobs. Earnings for healthcare workers have risen nearly twice as fast as those in other industries, with relatively large increases in the middle and upper-middle parts of the earnings distribution. Healthcare workers have remained predominantly female, with increases in the share of female doctors offsetting increases in the shares of male nurses and aides. Despite a few high-profile examples to the contrary, regions experiencing manufacturing job losses have not systematically reinvented themselves by pivoting from "manufacturing to meds."
Joshua Gottlieb is a Professor at the University of Chicago, where he leads the Becker-Friedman Institute's Health Economics Initiative and is Executive Director of the University's Research Data Center. Gottlieb completed his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University in 2012 and is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2025, Gottlieb was awarded the ASHEcon Medal, presented to an early career economist who has made the most significant contributions to the field of health economics. His work has also been recognized with the Kenneth J. Arrow Award for best paper in health economics and the National Tax Association Outstanding Dissertation Award. Gottlieb teaches in the Harris School of Public Policy and publishes in leading academic journals including The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, and American Economic Review. His scholarship draws on labor economics, industrial organization, and urban economics to uncover how market forces operate in the complex environment of healthcare. He specifically focuses on labor markets, provider-insurer relationships, and the location and scale of healthcare production.
Due to building access restrictions, if you do not have a Harvard ID and wish to attend, you must email inequality@hks.harvard.edu to receive permission at least three days in advance of the seminar.