The Country With The Most Female Inventors Over The Last 2 Decades Is African – Just Not The One You Think
When it comes to inventions, especially those of the scientific kind, it’s easy to want to think of certain countries in certain parts of the world as bossing things.
And maybe such an assumption isn’t far-fetched. Most of the world’s greatest inventions are, after all, from a certain part of the world — the so-called developed countries.
However, it gets quite interesting when attention is paid to inventions from a specific gender over the last decade. That category has the lesser-known countries blowing the usual suspects out of the water.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, the proportion of female inventors in patent applications stood at 10.04 and 9.44 percent in the period between 1998 and 2017. This is according to a study published by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office.
But some countries do boast a far higher female share, however, particularly from Africa. The study found that, over the past two decades, Togo had the highest proportion of female involvement at 57.14 percent, ahead of Uganda’s 44.55 percent.
The study explored gender profiles in worldwide patenting and Statista highlighted the data in an infographic. The study found that the overwhelming majority of patents are filed by men. But over the past decade, things have started to change, though progress is slow.
Perhaps the most interesting revelation came from the data on patents by females which showed that African women have been doing the most on the scene in the last two decades.
Last year, female inventors were only associated with 13.07 percent of all global patent applications. However, in the 20-year period from 1998 to 2017, it was revealed that Togo had the most invention patents by females than any other country.
Uganda has the second-highest number of patents by females while Rwanda and Botswana are among other African countries with a high number of patents by females.
Featured Image Courtesy: Heart.org
