Leading through a Pandemic: A study on Female Leadership & Covid-19 Outcomes

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to examine if female-led countries fared the Covid-19 pandemic differently from male-led countries. To do so, I rely on a pooled OLS regression model, using data from 189 countries between January 2020 to March 2022. My results show that countries with female leaders have significantly fewer cases and deaths of Covid-19 than countries with male leaders. This is found to likely be explained by fundamental differences between male- and female-led countries, for example in in terms of health care.