Researching the Effects of Female Leadership
Researching the Effects of Female Leadership Heading link
In 2013, Professor Susan Perkins published a research paper in the Journal of International Affairs in which she and co-authors Katherine Phillips and Nicholas Pearce found that female national leaders were more effective than their male peers in addressing perceived inequities, problems of inclusiveness, and the need to empower others. “In these complex conditions, which call for deep cooperation and collaboration, female leaders outperform their male counterparts,” the authors concluded.
Earlier this month, U.S. News & World Report interviewed Perkins and Phillips about correlations between female leadership and economic growth, a topic of recent private-sector research by MCSI and the Peterson Institute. Perkins emphasized the disanalogy between business and politics, explaining that economic effects of policy can take years to emerge, whereas the effects of executive decision-making become evident relatively quickly. Nonetheless, she and her co-authors called for more research into national-level outcomes that correlate with female leadership. Their research paper, titled “Ethnic Diversity, Gender, and National Leaders,” can be accessed here.