Barbara Bergmann is a forerunner in feminist economics with a passion for social policy and equality, especially relating to discrimination on account of race or sex.
Barbara R. Bergmann writes on economic and social policy, with recent works on Social Security, child care, poverty, women's place in the economy and the family, and the labor market problems of women and African Americans. She is Professor Emerita of Economics at the University of Maryland and at American University in Washington, DC. Dr. Bergmann served as a senior staff member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers during the Kennedy Administration. Other government experience includes service as Senior Economic Adviser with the Agency for International Development, and as an economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. She has served on advisory committees to the Congressional Budget Office and the Bureau of the Census. In the 1980s, she wrote a monthly column on economic affairs for the New York Times Sunday Business Section.
She has served as President of the Eastern Economic Association, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, the American Association of University Professors and the International Association for Feminist Economics.
Barbara Bergmann’s parents and grandparents, fleeing anti-Semitism, immigrated to the United States from Europe in 1914. She was born in 1927 to a Romanian-born mother and Polish-born father in the Bronx. Her parents worked instead of finishing school, but they expected Barbara to adhere to the standards and traditions of American life and eventually go to college. At the age of five, she started formulating ideas about feminism, pursuing equality for men and women, because she wanted to be an independent person when she grew up, and that required money and equality. During the Great Depression, Bergmann developed a strong belief that the government should provide resources and help to individuals who faced uncontrollable