Adam's Garden or Eve's?

Abstract

Corruption, or the misuse of public office, has become a major concern for governments in recent years. The purpose of this study is to identify how women, in an economic capacity, influence perception of corruption in a country, and how the relationship changes over time. Female empowerment movements have grown in the past decades, resulting in increased labour force participation of women. This chapter considers 167 countries from 1995 to 2018 to study the relationship. The results suggest that working women in an economy have a significant impact on reducing the perceived level of corruption, from 2007 to 2018, whereas this effect is not as strong in the earlier decade. These findings have implications for policies surrounding female employment. It is suggested that encouraging women to get higher education and become professionals can help curb the levels of corruption, especially in developing countries where corruption is widely prevalent.