This piece was written in collaboration with The Institute for Business in Global Society. (copy credit: Liz Szabo)

Although the women’s health technology sector is growing rapidly, women “FemTech” entrepreneurs still struggle to find the talent they need to succeed. For the market to reach its full potential, men need to overcome their unease about female bodies, a Harvard Business School professor says.

For many female inventors, helping other women is a key motivator. In fact, research by Harvard Business School professor Rem Koning finds that all-female teams of inventors are 35% more likely than all-male groups to focus on women’s health.

Many health discoveries remain out of reach, however, because women scientists and innovators can’t get their ideas off the ground. Although women make up about one-third of STEM scientists — and the market for women’s health is predicted to grow to $1 trillion a year by 2040 — female innovators face barriers that many male entrepreneurs can’t even imagine, according to Professor Koning. Obstacles range from entrenched sexism in tech to a lack of research funding and financial investment. Only 2.4% of venture capital goes to all-female founders. The result: the share of patents filed by women has been stuck at 13% for decades.

“We know there is bias, discrimination, structural barriers that stop women from advancing in the workplace, that stop women from becoming the amazing scientists they can be,” said Professor Koning, whose research explores how to help more entrepreneurs, scientists, and innovators succeed. “If they aren’t allowed to invent if they aren’t venture capitalists, we don’t end up with ideas targeting their needs.”

Despite the challenges, the “FemTech” sector —startups that use technology to address women’s needs — is on the rise. More than 60% of FemTech companies were launched in the past seven years, a fact reflected in the quadrupling of venture capital investment in women’s health from 2018 to 2023.

Men shy away from startups focused on women

Professor Koning’s research helps explain why tech startups geared toward women customers have smaller teams and often struggle to hire talented employees. About 80% of the people applying for startup jobs are men, and many won’t work for companies addressing women’s needs.

“While women are more likely to want to work on them, many men are resistant, or simply refuse to work on companies that focus on products targeting women According to Professor Koning: “Because men make up the majority of the labor force, you have this gap in talent.”

In an experiment to test men’s willingness to work for women-focused startups, which included everything from health products to financial apps, Koning and his collaborators created an online hiring platform that allowed men and women to find real startup jobs by first weighing in on whether they would be willing to apply to any of 15 hypothetical tech startups. Researchers presented the job seekers with two versions of each idea — one that was gender-neutral and one that specifically mentioned women.

Men often jumped at the chance to work for tech startups with gender-neutral products. When presented a female-focused alternative, men seem not interested in working at that start-up anymore,’” according to the research.

Overall, Koning found that men in the experiment were 10% less likely to apply for a female-focused startup.

In general, female-focused ideas attracted 25% fewer employees, according to the research. Potential employees who were interested in startups serving women had, on average, 30% less work experience. Women-centered startups would have to pay an additional $40,000 or higher annually to attract a similar number of applicants as a non-female-focused business.

Part of the problem may be that jobs are inherently social, and men may not wish to have to tell others that they work for a women-focused firm. Another issue may be that men have little understanding of women’s needs. According to Professor Koning: “A lot of empathy-building and exposure … needs to happen.”

Educating investors: When ‘niche’ isn’t niche

The solution? In the long term, men must learn to be more comfortable with women’s products. In the short term, government can give women’s health startups a boost through funding and policy change.

On the investment front, although women make 80% of household healthcare decisions, men account for 89% of partners at venture capital firms. These men are very reluctant to discuss ideas involving women’s bodies. That lack of support dooms many early-stage women startups to fail, further deterring investment.

When obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Lyndsey Harper was looking to raise money for a startup called Rosy, which focuses on women’s sexual health, she said some male investors dismissed her idea as “too niche.”

“How can something that affects more than half the population be too niche?” asked Harper, who practices in Dallas, Texas. “Medical schools and residency programs should spend far more time teaching young doctors about women’s health”, she said.

Today, Harvard Business School is teaching its MBA students how barriers to female entrepreneurship have undermined progress in women’s health. As a case study, Konig teaches students about a startup called Thinx, which makes menstrual underwear — one of the first innovations in period products in decades.

As for government’s role, research shows that policymakers, philanthropists, and investors also can bolster innovation in women’s health care, as the FemTech sector grows.

For example, the Affordable Care Act — which required all new insurance policies to pay for breast pumps — led to a surge of innovation. The number of patents for breast pumps nearly doubled after the law took effect, growing from 9.5 patents annually before the law took effect to 17 annually a year afterward.

First Lady Jill Biden is leading another effort to promote women’s health research. In February, she announced $100 million in federal funding for research and development of women’s health solutions. Yesterday (March 19), President Biden signed the executive order with 20 new actions and commitments by federal agencies, including $200 million for research at the National Institutes of Health.

Still, Professor Koning remarked that overcoming structural bias against women’s ideas will take time. “We often look for quick fixes,” Koning said. “There is something deep-seated here. This is a structural thing.”