To celebrate U.S. women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) on International Women’s Day, Hispanic Engineer Online took a look at the state of women in innovation. A landmark study on the gender patenting gap by the Washington D.C.-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research found women hold only a tiny share of patents, and that at the current rate, gender equity is more than 75 years away.
Analyzed data on information technology patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office found women were only 10.8 percent of all inventors on patents for whom gender was able to be determined.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research also found that although women have more than quintupled their representation among patent holders since 1977, only 18.8 percent of all patents had at least one woman inventor in 2010, compared with 3.4 percent in 1977.
Women’s under-representation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields was one factor contributing to the gender gap in patenting, the report said. Other factors included timely professional feedback and proper mentoring.
Only 2.3 percent of both Native American and Hispanic working women are employed in STEM fields, compared with 11.3 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander women and 4.9 percent of White women.
Writing in Thomas Insights on March 8, 2022, Kat De Naoum said as far as the gender patenting gap goes, significantly more men than women in the U.S. have had their inventions patented.
“When it comes to reaching the same percentage of patents as men, at the current rate of progress, women can expect to catch up in the year 2092,” De Naoum notes.
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