IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v57y2025i48p7961-7979.html

Women’s political empowerment, economic development, and democracy around COVID-19: a cross-country analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Mohammad Bitar
  • Jonathan Peillex
  • Imane El Ouadghiri
  • Hassan Obeid

Abstract

We study the effect of Women’s Political Empowerment (WPE) on COVID-19 contagion using a sample of 48 countries during the pandemic. We find that the number of COVID-19 cases is lower in countries with better WPE. Channels’ analyses show that the effect of WPE on COVID-19 contagion is more pronounced in democratic countries and in countries with better economic development. The findings underscore the importance of diverse and gender-inclusive leadership in crisis management. As for policy implications, we show that fostering women empowerment in politics not only advances gender equality but also contributes to a more resilient economy through effective health crisis preparedness and well-crafted response strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammad Bitar & Jonathan Peillex & Imane El Ouadghiri & Hassan Obeid, 2025. "Women’s political empowerment, economic development, and democracy around COVID-19: a cross-country analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(48), pages 7961-7979, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:48:p:7961-7979
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2024.2394698
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2024.2394698
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2024.2394698?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:48:p:7961-7979. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.