When the coronavirus pandemic took over the world back in March, concerned citizens looked to their country’s leaders for assurance, support, and guidance.
Months later, the fallout from the outbreak has inspired great academic attention with a new study suggesting that those nations with a woman at the helm have fared far better than those who have a man leading the charge.
The study, which was published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the World Economic Forum, claims gender has played a huge role in a country’s handling of the virus.
Authors Supriya Garikipati, from the University of Liverpool, and Uma Kambhampati, from the University of Reading, wrote that “being female-led has provided countries with an advantage in the current crisis.”
They also said this significant difference “may be explained by the proactive and coordinated policy responses” which have been adopted by female leaders.
To come to this conclusion, the authors looked at 194 countries and their respective responses to the outbreak.
Death and case tolls were studied, as well as whether individual leaders took decisive action to lock down their nations and whether they had deployed “clear communication styles.”
It’s certainly worth noting that of those 194 nations studied, only 19 have female leaders.
Yet it was those leaders and their virus responses who were found to have come out on top.
Such male-run nations as Spain, Italy, Brazil, U.K., and the U.S. have all reported significantly high death tolls since the virus began, with the U.S. claiming the most number of coronavirus-related deaths worldwide.
However, countries led by women were proven to have recorded far fewer deaths.
These include Germany, Denmark, Taiwan, Iceland, Finland, and New Zealand, which notably recently marked 100 days without a new community case of the virus before a mystery outbreak in the city of Auckland prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to immediately extend lockdown measures.
“Our results clearly indicate that women leaders reacted more quickly and decisively in the face of potential fatalities,” the study reads .
Of course, the authors did note that several male-led countries, such as the Czech Republic and Greece, have reported similarly low number of cases as well.
However, their evidence still largely points to the success of female leaders in regards to the outbreak.
“In almost all cases, they locked down earlier than male leaders in similar circumstances,” they wrote. “While this may have longer-term economic implications, it has certainly helped these countries to save lives, as evidenced by the significantly lower number of deaths in these countries.”
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An excellent comparison highlighting these differences can be found between New Zealand and the U.S.
Prime Minister Ardern of New Zealand imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 23 with only 102 confirmed cases and no deaths. Right from the beginning, her strategy of handling the virus was quite simple, yet effective: ” go hard, and go early .”
Meanwhile, President Trump repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of the virus before finally beginning to advise states to go into lockdown at the end of March , by which point the country had already reported more than 189,000 positive cases and some 3,900 deaths.
As of this writing, NZ has reported a total of 1,315 cases and 22 deaths, whereas the U.S. reports around 5.7 million cases and over 177,000 deaths.
Overall, the study’s authors say their findings prove “being female-led has provided countries with an advantage in the current crisis.”
This certainly echoes former Democratic presidential nominee Hilary Clinton’s words in June in which she said there’s a “correlation” between female leaders and positive COVID-19 responses.
Likewise, in December 2019 , well before the outbreak began, former President Barack Obama said women make far better leaders than men:
“I’m absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything… living standards and outcomes.”
h/t: SRRN , BBC , CBS News , National Post
