So how come fewer men than women wish they were more inventive?

o	The answer lies in the fact that more men than women think they are already inventive. For example, 59% of men but only 50% of women believe they are inventive in their life outside work.
o	52% of men and just 42% of women rate themselves as inventive in their working life.
o	More men than women rate themselves as taking an active interest in invention and innovation (51% vs. 40%).

Although more women wish they were more inventive, they seem overall more blasé than men about inventions.

o	A sound majority of Americans overall (65%) agrees there are too many inventions that are just gimmicks and do nothing to improve life, but fewer men than women (63% vs. 67%) have this jaded attitude.
o	More men than women find the idea of an American Inventors Investment Fund appealing (54% vs. 44%), and fewer men than women tend to take inventions and innovations for granted (43% vs. 47%).
o	Overall, a minority of respondents agree that if they had to choose, they would rather invent something that makes them rich rather than something really useful (29%), but the percentage of men who agree is bigger than the percentage of women (33% vs. 26%) and, correspondingly, the percentage of women disagreeing is much higher than men (50% vs. 38%, not shown in the table). In other words, men are more interested than women in inventing for wealth rather than for the benefit of others.

Age and Invention

Differences across the age cohorts partly reflect the fact that the men in the sample are on average slightly older than the women with a mean age of 45.4 vs. 42.4.

o	The starkest difference in attitudes across the age cohorts is that the prospect of being a famous inventor rather than a movie star becomes more attractive with the years; it appeals to 56% of the 18–34s, 64% of the 35–54s and 71% of the 55+ cohort.
o	That doesn’t mean that the youngsters aren’t thinking about inventions—quite the opposite; the statement “I sometimes fantasize (have fantasized) about thinking up new inventions” gets agreement from 66% of the 18–34s, 57% of the 35–64s and only 47% of the 55+ cohort.
o	There’s a similar profile of response to the appeal of an American Inventors Investment Fund, with 57% of 18–34s, 47% of 34–54s and 44% of 55+ going for it.
o	The youngest group also has far more faith in its ability to think up inventions; 56% of them agree with “I think I could invent something useful if I just had the time to think about what it might be,” compared with a lower 42% of 35–54s and 32% of 55+.
o	More youngsters than older respondents regard themselves as inventive in their life outside work (61%, 51% and 53%), and more regard themselves as inventive at work (57%, 41% and 46%).
o	The youngest respondents are also much more inclined to buy new inventions and try out new things before other people (46%, 31% and 25%), as well as more likely than the older respondents to choose inventing for wealth rather than for usefulness (39%, 27% and 23%).
o	Relatively few respondents overall agree that “Inventors may end up being sexy, almost like info age rock stars,” but more of them are younger than older (25%, 20% and 15%) and more of them think that “inventor” sounds like a sexy description (21% vs. 14% vs. 12%). But there are also more younger than older respondents who think inventing sounds nerdy (29% vs. 15% vs. 9%).