Culture, corruption, and women in government
Previous studies have posited that women are less tolerant of unethical behaviors than men and have found that countries with a greater percentage of women in government are associated with lower levels of corruption. Nonetheless, recent studies have hypothesized that the effect of women on corruption is dependent on institutional and cultural environments in which they work. The aim of this study is to empirically test if the effect of women in government on country-level corruption is dependent on culture using cross-country data. Through a series of regressions, moderating terms between women in government and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are added to empirically test the moderating effect of culture. This study offers empirical evidence that the effect of women in government on corruption is dependent on Hofstede’s individual cultural dimension, supporting recent claims that the effect of women on corruption is indeed dependent on cultural contexts.