Product Innovation and Sex of the Primary Business Owner

Innovation is central to improvements in living standards and can have important impacts on individuals, businesses, and entire economic sectors. The Annual Business Survey (ABS) measures product innovation as “the introduction to the market of new or improved products (goods or services) that differed significantly from the business’s previous products.” For the reference year 2020, ABS respondents reported about innovation activities during 2018–20; the product innovation rate is the percentage of businesses that had a product innovation during the 3-year period.

About 10% of female-majority–owned companies were product innovators compared with 9% of male-majority–owned companies, a small but statistically significant difference. The distribution of product innovating companies between male- and female-majority business owners (62% versus 24%) is nearly identical to the distribution for all companies between male- and female-majority business owners (63% versus 22%).

Text correction, 5 June 2023: The definition of product innovation was corrected to “the introduction to the market of new or improved products (goods or services) that differed significantly from the business’s previous products.” It was listed incorrectly as “the introduction of new or improved products (goods or services) that differed significantly from the business’s previous products or processes.”

Suggested citation: Kindlon A; National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). 2023. Product Innovation and Sex of the Primary Business Owner. NSF 23-337. Alexandria, VA: National Science Foundation. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23337.