Why Don't Women Patent?

Jennifer Hunt, Jean-Philippe Garant, Hannah Herman and David J. Munroe

No 17888, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We investigate women's underrepresentation among holders of commercialized patents: only 5.5% of holders of such patents are female. Using the National Survey of College Graduates 2003, we find only 7% of the gap is accounted for by women's lower probability of holding any science or engineering degree, because women with such a degree are scarcely more likely to patent than women without. Differences among those without a science or engineering degree account for 15%, while 78% is accounted for by differences among those with a science or engineering degree. For the latter group, we find that women's underrepresentation in engineering and in jobs involving development and design explain much of the gap; closing it would increase U.S. GDP per capita by 2.7%.

JEL-codes: J7 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-ipr, nep-pr~ and nep-tid
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Published as Why are women underrepresented amongst patentees? Original Research Article Research Policy, Volume 42, Issue 4, May 2013, Pages 831-843 Jennifer Hunt, Jean-Philippe Garant, Hannah Herman, David J. Munroe

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Working Paper: Why Don't Women Patent? (2012)
Working Paper: Why Don't Women Patent? (2012)
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