May 2020
Article
AEA Papers and Proceedings

Inventor Gender and the Direction of Invention

By: Rembrand Koning, Sampsa Samila and John-Paul Ferguson

Format:Print

Abstract

We study whether increasing the share of female inventors leads to more biomedical inventions that focus on the needs of women. After accounting for detailed disease-technology, disease-year, and technology-year fixed effects, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in the share of female inventors in a research area yields 1.2 percentage points more female-focused patents. Notably, this effect only holds for female-led invention teams. Areas with a greater share of female inventors in supporting roles do not produce more female-focused inventions. For gender to impact the direction of invention, it appears that women must occupy positions of power.

Keywords

Innovation and Invention; Gender; Patents

Citation

Koning, Rembrand, Sampsa Samila, and John-Paul Ferguson. "Inventor Gender and the Direction of Invention." AEA Papers and Proceedings 110 (May 2020): 250–254.