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27 October 2005

Sex and Corruption

In an undergraduate seminar last year my students and I discovered a curious relationship between the representation of women in the national legislature and corruption. Specifically, the percentage of parliamentary seats held by men and the perceived level of political corruption are strongly correlated, at least in OECD nations.


corrupt.jpg

I can imagine several explanations for this relationship. Causation could run either direction, and lots of spurious relationships come to mind. Is there any literature to consult on this?

Posted by Barry Burden at October 27, 2005 7:31 PM

Comments

The only paper I am aware of on this topic is:

Sung, Hung-En. 2003. Fairer Sex or Fairer System? Gender and Corruption Revisited. Social Forces, 88, 2, 703-723.

Perhaps the literature review could be of some help. The article is available on JSTOR.

Erin

Posted by: Erin at November 6, 2005 6:38 PM

Erin:

Thanks for this perfect citation. Sung argues that the relationship is really spurious, that corruption and representation of women are both related to the degree of democracy in a political system. For those without access to Social Forces, here is the abstract:

Two recent influential studies found that larger representations of women in government reduced corruption. Assuming that the observed gender differentials were caused by women's inclinations toward honesty and the common good, both studies advocated increased female participation in government to combat corruption. This study argues that the observed association between gender and corruption is spurious and mainly caused by its context, liberal democracy — a political system that promotes gender equality and better governance. Data favor this "fairer system" thesis.

Posted by: Barry Burden at November 15, 2005 10:00 AM