Does economic power or leadership matter? The difference between male and female world leaders in managing pandemics

ABSTRACT

Factors that are typically associated with better disease prevention and control, such as the health care expenses and the wealth of a nation, are no longer reliable predictors of disease parameters during the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, we see many developed nations suffering from more widespread infection, a higher mortality rate, and longer pandemic duration. We analyse the performance outcomes of female-led vs. male-led countries in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We employ regression analysis based on the full sample as well as a propensity score matched sample emphasizing women’s roles in society. In general, we provide some evidence that female-led countries exhibit lower numbers of total population-weighted cases and shorter pandemic duration.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• leadership
• pandemic
• economic power

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• I18
• J16

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ See the Appendix for all countries.

² We also consider the order of the first Covid-19 case date (First_Day). However, it is not significant in all regressions and the inclusion does not change our results; therefore, the variable is not shown in the final model. Moreover, to consider the possible effect of culture differences and the impact of air quality on Covid-19 performance, we also test models that include power distance index (PDI) and air quality index (AQI). Both PDI and AQI are not statistically significant, and our conclusions remain. Due to their insignificance and reduced sample size, we have not included these variables in the final model. Although these results are not tabulated for brevity, they are available upon request. We thank the reviewer for suggesting these additional robustness tests.