Cuba leads the list of nations with the highest proportion of women inventors, 53 percent of women associated with inventions, said Statista GmbH, an online statistics portal with data on market, opinion and economic studies.
According to the figures recorded on the German site, the World Intellectual Property Organization analyzes the international patent applications filed each year and shows that Cuba‘s number (an average of 10 per year) in 2021 made the Latin American country number one in that ranking.
It is followed by the Philippines, with 38 percent and Portugal with 34 percent, while four other Spanish–speaking countries are among the top eleven out of a total of 74: Costa Rica and Peru, Chile and Spain, details the Satista report.
However, she says, in economies such as the United States, Germany or Japan, with a reputation for innovation, women are especially underrepresented in patent applications: 16, 12 and 10 percent respectively; all below the world average.
According to the National Office of Statistics and Information, about 51,000 Cubans carry out science and technology activities, which represents the largest number in recent years.
The Caribbean country is one of the seven nations that achieve gender parity in scientific research and a significant presence of women among the authors of relevant publications, innovations, patents and awards, according to the report of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The ONEI reported that until 2022 women made up 53.8 percent of the workforce dedicated to this type of activity, a number that reflects a positive progress towards gender equality in a crucial sector for the country‘s economic and social development.
They also represent 69.6 percent of the public health sector and of the 10 Cuban inventions that have received the Gold Medal of the World Intellectual Property Organization, they are the main authors in six.
“Although the proportion of women inventors has grown steadily in recent decades throughout the world, in 2021 they only represented 17 percent of the people designated as inventors in international patent applications,” says the Statista text.
She also points out that progress is very slow in terms of the gender gap in the scientific branch, since men continue to represent a large majority of the names associated with patented inventions worldwide.
With information from Prensa Latina/Translated by Radio Angulo
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