Fairer Sex or Fairer Analysis? Gender, Risk, and Corruption

Scholars of the relationship between gender and corruption frequently assume that women are more risk averse than men in order to explain why women are less corrupt than men. Despite the popularity of this assumption, existing scholarship on gender and corruption lacks rigorous, large‑N testing of the relationship between risk, gender, and corruption. We reviewed the economics literature around risk and gender and the literature in political science on risk, gender, and corruption to derive hypotheses. Using the World Values Survey (49 countries), we analysed the relationship between risk, gender, and bribery (generalised linear mixed model). Unsurprisingly, respondents who perceive higher risks of being held accountable for corrupt actions engage in less corruption than respondents who perceive low risks. Yet this relationship is rather weak. Surprisingly, we found no significant gender difference for perceived risk of being held accountable for corruption, nor did we find gendered differences for the relationship between risk and corruption.