There will be no corruption gender gap

Often, simple propositions are beguiling but mask deep complexity and causal density as exemplified in Are Women Really Less Corrupt Than Men? by Joshua Keating. The argument advanced by the World Bank and others is that the more female politicians there are, the lower is the incidence of corruption.

Great outcome but is it true? That is the question raised by Keating. He indicates the original research that led to the proposition but then links to new research that provides a more nuanced explanation of what is going on. In the original proposition, the popular summary might be - Goal: reduced corruption in government, Premise: women are more principled than men therefore, Conclusion: Elect more women.

What the new research suggests is that

In a political culture “where corruption is stigmatized, women will be less tolerant of corruption and less likely to engage in it compared to men,” they write. “But if corrupt behaviors are an ordinary part of governance supported by political institutions, there will be no corruption gender gap.”

[snip]

Esarey and Chirillo describe an experiment conducted “in the United States and Burkina Faso where they found that, compared to men, women are equally likely to accept bribes in the absence of monitoring but are substantially less likely to accept bribes when being monitored.”

Another way to consider this is the old trope of men being greater risk takers. They are more willing to risk pursuing illicit rewards than women where there is a negative consequence to that pursuit. In contrast, women are less willing to take that risk. However, where there is little risk of negative consequence, both are equally likely to be corrupt.

So we start out with the nobility of women and end up validating gender stereotypes.

Tropes, stereotypes, weak data, complex processes and thin evidence. Causal density and process complexity takes us in perculiar directions as we seek the truth.