Part of the It’s Not Your Father’s Market Series
By Elena Lipson, Market Development
August 2018
The stats (see Part 1 of this series) speak volumes – women are under-represented in health tech; the majority of health tech solutions are designed by men. I’ve talked about why women need different support than men do, and therefore, different solutions. Now I want to explore the consequences of what happens as a result of the gender imbalance in this industry.
Solutions are Inadequate
For health tech solutions to effectively solve the customers’ problems they are purporting to solve, they need to co-develop the solutions with those very customers. This means if a company is developing a solution that will be used primarily by women (as is the case with many caregiving solutions) or even if 50% of the users will be women, then there needs to be some women on the leadership team, the design and engineering team, the sales team, etc.
I’ve seen several teams made up of very talented, experienced, and intelligent people who are designing pregnancy and caregiving solutions, and they don’t have a single woman on their team. This is mind-boggling to me and just bad for business.
If I’m going to purchase your solution, particularly if it’s focused on a problem that’s specific to women, I’m going to look and see if you have people on your team that look like me. I want to know that you really get me and my needs. I want you to speak my language and have an intimate understanding of my problems, desires, and lifestyle. Whether it’s right or wrong, I don’t feel confident that a bunch of Ivy-league educated white men really know what I need and want – no matter how many focus groups or prototype testing rounds they run.
At Livpact, I’m proud to say our team is nearly 60% women and three out of five of our advisors are also women. We know women are the primary customers we’re designing for and we built our team to reflect that and serve them.
Innovation is Stifled
Innovation at big companies is tough. Often the culture and established processes don’t support it, even when companies throw money at innovation teams and give them permission to operate outside of standard operating procedures.
Consequently, most of the innovation in health tech is happening at start-ups and emerging companies in cities like San Francisco, Boston, and New York City. In my experience working as a female entrepreneur in the start-up world of digital health, it’s still largely a man’s world. Yes, there are more women getting into this industry but the money still flows largely from male VCs and private equity firms, the tech teams are still predominantly men, and the social culture still skews toward “Silicon Valley bro”.
All of this makes it more challenging for women to be heard. And when women aren’t being heard, it’s hard to imagine that the innovation taking place really includes solutions that are going to provide breakthrough products and services for their unique problems.
The Gender Pay Gap Widens
Lastly, when we have an unbalanced representation of women in health tech, we end up with solutions that effectively perpetuate the gender pay gap, especially when it comes to caregiving solutions.
Here’s why:
Female caregivers are more likely to be impacted professionally and financially from their caregiving responsibilities, but it’s not clear that the industry is really designing for these women. Because most employers have not yet stepped up to the plate to provide adequate caregiver benefits for employees, women often find themselves needing to take more time off, switch to a less demanding job or quitting work entirely.
These circumstances not only slow women down in their careers, but also impact their salary and overall benefits. A MetLife and National Alliance for Caregiving study calculated that women lose an average $324,044 in compensation due to caregiving.
And the timing of all of this could not be worse. The average female caregiver is 49 years old – hardly an ideal time to ramp down or step away from the workforce; women 50+ often enjoy fewer professional opportunities than their younger counterparts.
These are just some of the ways in which having fewer women in health tech at all levels hurts women and society at large. What have you observed? What are some examples of companies that have got this right? Where are there opportunities for improvement?
Let us know what you think in the comments below.