If businesses want to make more money this year, there’s one very simple thing they could do: build more products for women.
The new Innovate Her report from BCG X, which surveyed 15k people from 12 countries, found that while women manage an estimated $31.8tn of economic spending — and will control 75% of worldwide discretionary spending over the next five years — there are still huge gaps in the market when it comes to products and services tailored to women’s wants and needs.
Take finance. According to BCG X’s report, while women are nine percentage points more likely to have concerns about the financial impact of life events like debt than men, they are less confident than men when it comes to actually managing their finances. Even in consumer product categories like clothing and sports and fitness, two-fifths of women told BCG X they are unsatisfied with what’s on the market.
But it’s in healthcare that the biggest gaps can be seen — with just 41% of women agreeing they have the services they need to address their specific health concerns, according to BCG X’s study.
“The study really shows how underserved women are in healthcare,” says Alexandra Friedman, a BCG X managing director and one of the authors of the report. “The healthcare system, based on this research, is inefficient for half the population.”
Women’s healthcare falls short in Europe
In Europe in particular, women feel there is a lack of services for their health needs.
Of the 12 markets surveyed in BCG X’s report, the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain all scored poorly when asked if their healthcare services sufficiently provided for women's health needs. In France and Germany in particular, more than 20% of women with children say healthcare services are lacking.
“There’s strong demand for comprehensive, end-to-end care plans that are personalised, but [in Europe] the systems tend to be so fragmented,” says Friedman.
Of course there are also systemic factors at play. Most healthcare research — from cell-level and animal testing to clinical trials — is done using male test subjects. Because of this, women experience 50-75% more adverse reactions than men to prescription drugs, while other problems like misdiagnosis and medical procedure failures are also elevated among women.
Where the innovation gaps lie
But there is hope, as some startups are working to close the women’s health gap.
Data has the power to transform women’s healthcare.
For example, UK-based women’s health brand Hertility sells at-home hormone and fertility tests, and is building aggregated, anonymised data sets based on its users’ experiences. Hertility has raised more than $14m to date from investors including LocalGlobe, the Sequoia Scout Fund and the actress and UN ambassador Emma Watson.
“Data has the power to transform women’s healthcare,” says Deirdre O'Neill, Hertility’s cofounder and CCO. “It can uncover patterns in reproductive health, improve diagnostic accuracy and personalise treatment.”
The hope is that this information will empower women to make informed decisions about their own health.
BCG X’s report shows that women in Europe are highly engaged when it comes to healthcare, making more than 75% of household health decisions. Quality, convenience, affordability and timeliness are all important priorities for these consumers, with women in Italy, Spain and the UK in particular interested in telehealth services.
“When you double-click into almost any [healthcare] area, you see a very big total addressable market where dollars are being left on the table by not paying attention to women,” says Friedman.
Closing the women’s healthtech gap
But closing the women’s healthcare gap is not as simple as telling companies to build more products and services for women.
A chronic lack of funding for women’s health — not just for startups building in this space, but at a research level, too — is exacerbating this healthtech gap. According to Nature, in 2020 just 5% of global R&D funding was allocated to women’s health research, with just 0.25% of that going towards fertility research.
Starting with a personal pain point means you are your own target audience.
Studies have also shown that women’s healthtech is less likely to get funding if there is a woman on the founding team — making it even harder to build products that authentically respond to women's needs. Femtech companies founded by women receive just 28% of overall VC funding allocated to this segment, according to researcher Ludovica Castiglia.
“We built something that we needed and that our friends needed,” O’Neill says. “Starting with a personal pain point means you are your own target audience.”
Friedman agrees, adding that diverse perspectives are critical for innovation.
“For women to be served by fast-moving innovation in healthcare, women have to be at the centre of these innovation cycles,” says Friedman. “Companies that listen to this research and see how unmet women’s needs are, and who take this opportunity seriously, will position themselves for financial success while also earning the trust and loyalty of one of the most influential customer groups.”