Female officials have fewer opportunities for graft and find it harder to get away with
IN JANUARY TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL, an NGO, released its annual report on corruption around the world. Measured by its average index, corruptionfor a decade. In many poor countries it is getting worse. The authors’ recommendations include strengthening anti-corruption agencies, cracking down on financial crime and making public spending more transparent. But some countries have tried a different method: hiring more women.
The idea gained credence after researchers from the World Bank published a study in 2001 that looked at 100 countries. In those with a greater proportion of female legislators, officials were less likely to demand bribes. New research by a group of academics, including Francesco Decarolis of Bocconi University, in Milan, came to a similar conclusion.
The authors stopped short of proposing a reason for the gap. But other academics, like Elin Bjarnegard, of Uppsala University in Sweden, have offered possible explanations. One is that female officials tend to have fewer opportunities to take bribes or improperly wield connections. Corruption thrives within “old boys’ clubs”. It may be that these groups, typically dominated by men, tend to trust and induct people who look like them.
Another plausible explanation is that female politicians avoid corruption because they are more severely punished for it. Many voters expect women to conform to stereotypes that they are more honest and compassionate than men. When they are not, they pay heavily for it.
The explanations are grounded in the reality that women have less power than men. So any corruption gender gap could fade in countries where the sexes become more equal. This has already been so for the gender gap in general crime. On average, women still commit fewer offences than men. But women have become more criminal over the past 50 years. That is in part because technological and social progress have allowed them more time to work outside the home .
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