Innovation, Gender, and War

• In Event: Gendered Labor and War

Abstract

How does women's labor force participation affect innovation? We focus on the context of World War II specifically and find that women's labor force participation increases innovation, but that innovation is largely driven by men. We focus on the context of war because of the urgent necessity of crisis innovation and because war creates an exogenous need and opportunity for greater women's labor force participation due to men's mobilization. We argue that women's labor force participation increases innovation by men through two channels: first, when women enter low-skilled positions requiring physical labor, women's substitution of men drives process and automation innovations to reduce the reliance on physical strength. However, high-skilled men in these fields lead the innovating teams. Second, the entry of more high-skilled women into the workforce creates greater workplace diversity, which has been shown in numerous studies to increase creativity and problem-solving. Yet, women also face institutional (often discriminatory) workplace constraints, so the effect of diversity on innovation benefits men more than women. Using county-level U.S. data and a well-validated instrument of county-level factories and casualty rates, our results show that the increase in women's labor force participation during World War II is associated with a rise in innovation, but patents are primarily filed by men, and it takes years before we observe any effect on women's innovation. Further statistical tests explore the validity of both mechanisms.

Author

• Megan A. Stewart, University of Michigan