During the pandemic, studies suggested that female leaders tended to perform better than their male peers. There were also numerous suggestions that the financial crisis of 2008 wouldn’t have happened with more female leaders in charge. Research from Bocconi University suggests that female leaders are also likely to be less corrupt than their male peers.

The study examined various layers of government bureaucracy in China and Italy and found that women were much less likely to be suspected or charged with corruption. The researchers believe their findings might mean that women should be placed in roles where corruption is a considerable risk.

Corruption risk

The study shows that not only are women less likely to be corrupt but also identifies a reason for this, as female bureaucrats would often be more defensive when faced with the possibility of future investigations, so would strive to minimize the risk of such events unfolding.

The findings emerged after an analysis of prefectural leaders in China and procurement officers in Italy. The data showed which officials in each area had been investigated and/or arrested for corruption. After accounting for confounding factors, the results show that being a woman was enough to reduce the risk by 22% in Italy and 81% in China.

The researchers are also confident that their findings can be applied to other countries and other sectors, as their sample was from a good variety of cultural, organizational, and political backgrounds. While it’s possible that women are simply less corruptible than men, they contend that there may be numerous other factors involved.

For instance, women and men might be selected for roles with different possibilities for corruption, or that women operate in roles with lower levels of enforcement. What did appear evident, however, is that women across both scenarios tended to be more risk-averse, which heightened the likelihood of compliance and lowered the risks of being investigated for violations of procedures.

“Ultimately, we can’t conclude that the average woman is less corrupt than the average man. But we now have strong evidence that after the process of selection into bureaucratic professions has taken place, women tend to be significantly less corrupt,” the authors conclude.