TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hunt,Jennifer
AU  - Garant,Jean-Philippe
AU  - Herman,Hannah
AU  - Munroe,David J.
TI  - Why Don't Women Patent?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17888
PY  - 2012
Y2  - March 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17888
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17888.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jennifer Hunt
Department of Economics
Rutgers University
New Jersey Hall
75 Hamilton Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1248
Tel: (732) 932-7363
E-Mail: jennifer.hunt@rutgers.edu

Jean-Philippe Garant
Department of Economics, McGill University
855 Sherbrooke Street West, Leacock 443
Montreal, QC H3A2T7
E-Mail: jean-philippe.garant@mail.mcgill.ca

Hannah Herman
Department of Economics, McGill University
855 Sherbrooke Street West, Leacock 443
Montreal, QC H3A2T7
E-Mail: hannah.herman@mail.mcgill.ca

David J. Munroe
Columbia University, Department of Economics
420 West 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
E-Mail: djm2166@columbia.edu
AB  - 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%.
ER  -