Nobel Prize: The Gender Gap and Exceptional Marie Curie

Syed Mansoor Sarwar

Alfred Nobel of the Nobel Prize fame was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, literarian, businessman, and philanthropist. He was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 21, 1833. When he was only five years old, his father, Immanuel Nobel, left his family to establish his business in St. Petersburg, the then capital of Russia. In 1842, Alfred along with his mother and siblings joined his father in St. Petersburg, where he had established a successful business of manufacturing machine tools and explosives.

Nobel, third of the four surviving brothers, did not attend any college or university. He and his siblings received their education through private tutoring in St. Petersburg in the 1840s. Whereas, his brothers were trained as engineers, Nobel received education in Chemistry. At the time of his death on December 10, 1896, Nobel had 355 patents, including those for dynamite and its detonator, and 90 companies in 20 countries. In fact, dynamite was his first patent that he registered at age 30. The University of Uppsala awarded Nobel an honorary degree in 1883. The Swedish Academy Sciences elected him as a member in March 1884.

Nobel established the Nobel Prize through his will in 1895 to recognize annually those who “have done mankind the greatest good” in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. The prize can be given to up to three individuals, individuals and organizations, or organizations. He dedicated 94% of his total assets, £1,687,837 (GBP), for the five prizes. Today, the capital is worth over £440 (US$550) million. These highly coveted prizes were first awarded in 1901. At the time of its inception, it was the largest prize ever. The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, also known as Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was added in 1968 and first awarded in 1969 through a large donation given to the Nobel Foundation by the Swedish National Bank.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, and Economic Sciences; the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; the Swedish Academy accolades the Nobel Prize in Literature; and the Norwegian Nobel Committee decides the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The ceremonies for honoring the recipients of these prizes, except the Peace Prize, take place in Stockholm, Sweden. The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway.

Each Nobel laureate is honored with a diploma bearing a citation, a gold medal, and eleven million Swedish crowns. The medals given before 1980 were made of 23-carat gold, and those given since 1980 were made using 18-carat green gold coated with 24-carat gold. Thus far, the Nobel Prize has been awarded 621 times to 1000 people and organizations. A total of 970 people and 30 organizations have received this coveted prize. Since some have received it more than once, a total of 965 people and 27 organizations have received the Nobel Prize. Four scientists and two organizations have received the prize more than once.

There were years when Nobel Prize was not awarded in all or some categories, 49 in total, mostly during World War I (2014-18) and World War II (1939-45). The prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace were not awarded 6, 8, 9, 7, and 19 times, respectively. The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded every year since its inception in 1969. The Nobel laureates are announced during October, Nobel’s month of birth, and honored during December, the month of his death. The winners of 2023 were announced from October 2-9 and will be honored during the Nobel Week from December 6-12 in Stockholm and Oslo. The awards will be given to the winners on December 10, the death anniversary of Nobel.

Out of the 970 Nobel laureates honored thus far, only 65 (6.70%) are women. The following chart shows the gender wise distribution of the prize in the six categories and the table shows the gender wise percentages of the Nobel Prize winners is all categories. The chart and table also show that 55.38% of the women laureates have won the prize in Peace and Literature, and 44.62% in the science subjects. Of the total prizes won by them, women have won 15.58 % in Literature and Peace combined, 4.13% in Physics, Medicine, and Chemistry combined, and 3.92% in Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, and Economics combined.

Subject	Percent
	Men	Women
Physics	97.78	2.22
Medicine	94.35	5.65
Chemistry	95.81	4.19
Literature	85.83	14.17
Peace	82.88	17.22
Economics	96.77	3.23
Total	93.30	6.70

The following chart shows quarter-century wise distribution of the prize winners. Note that during the first 100 years, only 30 women won the prize. However, during the past 23 years, there have been 35 female winners. Four out of 11 (36.36%) laureates in 2023 are women. This is the highest percentage of women winners to date; the previous high was four out of 12 (33.33%) in 2020. This year, women have won two prizes in sciences, one each in Physics and Chemistry, compared to three in 2020—one in Physics and two in Chemistry.

The 65 women recipients of the prize belong to 25 countries. The United States women stand out with the lion’s share of 22 (33.33%) of these awards. These include 16 (64%) in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, and Economics—they have won all three prizes in Economics. The French women have won the second highest 5 prizes—four in science subjects (Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine) and one in literature. The women from UK and Sweden have won 4 each. The women from Germany have won 3 and those from Austria, Canada, Iran, Italy, Liberia, Norway, and Poland have won two each. The women from Belarus, Burma/Myanmar, Chile, China, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Palestine/Israel, Philippines, South Africa, and Yemen have won one each, most winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

The first-generation immigrant women have won 16 of the 65 of the prizes. Five of these women are from US, all winning prizes in sciences— three in Medicine and one each in Physics and Economics. Four are from the UK, two each from Germany and Sweden, and one each from Belarus, France and Norway. Country-wise distribution of the first-generation Nobel Prize winner female immigrants is given in the following chart. One among these first-generation Nobel laureates was Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie, commonly known as Marie Curie and Madame Curie, born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. Her father was a teacher of physics and mathematics. She was the first women to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two areas of science: Physics and Chemistry.

As a child, Marie amazed people with her wonderful memory and started to read when she was only four years old. She finished her secondary education with a gold medal at age 16 and wanted to pursue higher studies in science and mathematics. However, because her family could not afford her higher studies due to poor financial health, she started teaching and became a governess at 18. She helped pay for her sister Bronisława’s medical education in Paris. Later, her sister helped Marie with her education at Sorbonne University. In 1891, aged 24, Marie Curie moved to France and pursued higher degrees and conduct research in physical and mathematical sciences. She was poor and lived an austere life eating bread and butter, drinking tea, and wearing old clothes she had brought with her from Warsaw. As part of her daily routine, she would study in the university library until 10 p.m., then go to her cold little room, and study until 2 or 3 am. She graduated in Physics in 1893, taking first position and then received a degree in Mathematics in 1894, taking second place.

On Jul 25, 1895, she married Pierre Curie, a French Physicist, and became a French citizen. Both pursued research in the field of radioactivity. She earned her Doctorate of Science in June 1903 and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in December 1903. She shared the prize with her husband and French Physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel for their pioneering work on the theory of “radioactivity”—a term that she coined. She was appointed chief assistant in Pierre Curie’s laboratory in 1904. Tragically, Pierre Curie died in a road accident when he was knocked down by a horse and cart in Paris in April 1906, aged 47. Pierre and Marie had two daughters, Irène and Eve, born in 1897 and 1904, respectively. Irène was less than 9 years and Eve about 16 months when their father died.

After the death of her husband, Curie spent more time raising her daughters but continued to pursue her dedication to scientific research and discovery. Because of her continued passion and commitment to research, she won her second Nobel Prize in 1911, this time in Chemistry, for the discovery of the first radioactive element, radium, and polonium. She was the sole winner of the prize. She remained the only person to win the Nobel Prize twice for 52 years until Linus Pauling won it in Chemistry and Peace in 1954 and 1963, respectively. Subsequently, John Bardeen won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 and 1972 and Frederick Sanger won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1958 and 1980.

Marie Curie was also the first woman in France to earn a PhD in Physics and the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne University, one of the most coveted universities in France and Europe established in 1257. On 13 May 1906, she was appointed to the professorship at the university. In 1908, she became the first female full professor at Sorbonne. Marie Curie was decorated with several other awards and honors, including Davy Medal, Matteucci Medal, Actonian Prize, Elliot Cresson Medal, Albert Medal, Civil Order of Alfonso XII, Franklin Medal, John Scott Medal, Willard Gibbs Award, Cameron Prize, and Order of the White Eagle (2018, posthumously). The University of Pennsylvania honored Marie Curie with an honorary degree in May 1921. Her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, received the degree on behalf of her mother. The conventional unit of radioactivity, Curie (symbol Ci), is named after Marie Curie and Pierre Curie. The exceptional Marie Curie died on 4 July 1934, aged 66, of aplastic anemia, most likely caused by excessive exposure to radiation during her research work.

Over the years after the death of Pierre Curie, Irène Curie became her mother’s colleague and research partner in Marie’s laboratory. She married Frédéric Joliot 1926 and became Irène Joliot-Curie. They had a son and a daughter. She became an outstanding researcher and a battlefield radiologist, activist, and politician. She and her husband discovered the first-ever artificially created radioactive atoms, which paved the way for numerous medical advances, including the fight against cancer. This work resulted in both winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935. Irène was the first female to win this prize after her mother had won it in 1911. She died in Paris on 17 March 1956, aged 58, of acute leukemia, most likely caused due to her extended exposure to Polonium and X-rays. Her daughter, Hélène Langevin-Joliot, became a nuclear physicist and professor at the University of Paris, and son, Pierre Joliot, became a biochemist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, where Hélène became research emeritus.

Marie Curie’s younger daughter, Ève Denise Curie Labouisse, unlike her parents, sister, and brother-in-law, did not pursue a career as a scientist. She became a well-known French and American writer, journalist, and pianist. She also authored her mother’s biography Madame Curie. For over 40 years since 1960, she worked for UNICEF and helped children and mothers in developing countries. Ève was the only member of her family who did not win a Nobel Prize. However, her husband, Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr., a director at UNICEF, did collect the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 on behalf of his organization, completing the Curie family’s legacy of five Nobel Prize winners and six prizes. Ève died on October 22, 2007, aged 102. She had no children.

Although there have been several two Nobel Prize winners in a family, no family even comes close to Marie Curie family’s record of five winners and six prizes. Marie Curie and Pierre Curie are considered the founders of the modern-day Faculty of Science and Engineering at Sorbonne University. Continuing with the tradition of excellence in the pursuit of scientific research and discovery set by Marie Curie, the Sorbonne alumni and teachers have won 35 Nobel Prizes, six Fields Medals, and one Turing Award.

The author is former Vice Chancellor of the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore, former Principal of the Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT), University of the Punjab, Lahore, and former Head of Computer Science Department at LUMS, Lahore.