Women’s political empowerment: Influence of women in legislative versus executive branches in the fight against corruption

This research adds to the literature on gender and corruption, with the main contributions lying in the comparison of the relative influence of women in the legislative versus the executive branches of the government on cross-country corruption. Placing the empirical analysis within the context of the determinants of corruption, results, using data over a large sample of nations covering the years 2018–2020, show that it is women in the legislative branch (via membership in parliaments) that exert a downward pressure on corruption. On the other hand, women in the executive branch (captured via female heads of state and female cabinet ministers) did not exert a statistically significant influence on corruption. Such insignificance also held when an overall index of women’s political empowerment was used and with respect to the longevity of women’s suffrage in a nation. Interestingly, nations with quotas for women’s political participation experienced greater corruption. Our quantile regression results uniquely show the sensitivity of the prevalence of corruption to the factors driving it. These findings provide additional insights into the role of women in government - women across the board in government will not necessarily lead to a “cleaner” government, and that, the institution of quotas to bolster women’s participation in the political process is not advisable, at least when corruption reduction is a goal.