[3] 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.
While in college pursuing her love for “creating models of simple processes that might or might not resemble what goes on in the actual economy,” she discovered Gunnar Myrdal’s book An American Dilemma that told of the racial inequality in the South.
Research and experience has led Barbara Bergmann to develop theories and ideas about government policy, the implementation of observation into economics, and racial and gender equality.
[6] Bergmann studied microsimulation at Harvard University with computer generated simulation that provided a model with equations of macrovariables constructed on analogies of microeconomics.
She believes that microsimulation provides “rigor, realism, and an ability to incorporate complexities revealed by more empirical investigations into the workings of business.”[6] In a class with Professor Edward Chamberlin at Harvard, Bergmann discovered that economic theory, regardless of its ingenuity or prevalence in the field, can actually produce a different picture of the economy than reality.
It was in a market experiment in Chamberlin's class that Bergmann started to believe that economic theory needed to be influenced by actual observation of individuals.
She argues that macroeconomics can fix many social problems and economic policy can be used to enhance the lives of individuals, but economists are too persuaded by political affiliation to work toward a common goal.
[12] Barbara Bergmann notes that equality of the sexes was not present throughout civilization – around there is an economic and social division of labor between men and women historically.
Bergmann views the best and most feasible option for equality to be “high commodification” where many of the household tasks and childcare predominantly performed by women are outsourced to organizations and individuals.