Effect of Leader Gender on Countries’ Performance: Evidence from Four COVID-19 Waves

Does gender affect country leaders’ performance during a health crisis, and through what mechanisms? This study finds a clear, substantial negative correlation between having a female leader in democracies and their COVID-19 infections and mortality rates, rejecting multiple spurious claims. The research is the first to analyze four pandemic waves covering two years while performing inter-wave analysis. The gendered performance gap continuously grew during the first three waves, moderated by vaccinations in the fourth wave. We found that trust and effectiveness mechanisms impacted the growth of the performance gap. As new variants of COVID-19 continue to spread and new threats related to the climate crisis are threatening globally, understanding the impact of gender in leadership roles, particularly during global crises, can provide valuable insights for policymakers and national leaders.