The Iron Lady, the Steel Butterfly and — mom?
In a recent interview on a late-night talk show, comedian Louis C.K. said he would be voting for Hillary Clinton in this month’s U.S. presidential election because he’s excited to have the “first mother” in the White House.
“A mother just does it,” he said on “Conan” last week. “She feeds you and teaches you. She protects you. She takes care of you.” And it seems he might be onto something.
Experts agree that female leaders — driven by scientifically validated feminine leadership styles — tend to promote policy agendas focused on inclusivity and empowerment. These policies foster increased access to education, employment and economic participation, which indirectly lead to a stronger national economy.
“Most women (leaders) support policies that tap into otherwise unrealized growth potential. Any leader who supports increased participation in education and empowerment is making a long-term investment in the economy,” says Melissa Labonte, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “But we can’t demonstrate with high degrees of confidence that a woman is somehow affecting economic growth directly.”
Less than half of the world’s countries have had a female head of state or government, according to the World Economic Forum. And while female leadership has increased in recent decades, the number of years under female rule in our collective global history is a rather small sample size to draw conclusions about its effect on national economies.
“Female leaders are part of a rare club put under such limelight,” says Labonte. “They are held under a microscope in ways that male leaders are not, and it is an impediment to how their success is perceived.”
[READ: Why some countries have more female leadership in their history than others.]
The presence of female heads of businesses is also rare, but analysis of gender diversity in corporate c-suites is more common. The return on equity generated by firms with strong female leadership in the executive suite or on the board is 10.1 percent per year, which is 2.7 percentage points higher than those without, according to a 2015 study of the companies traded on the Morgan Stanley Capital International World Index. Research of more than 20,000 publicly traded companies in 91 countries released by the Peterson Institute for International Economics in February supported similar profitability trends.
Running a country isn’t quite like running a business, but there is evidence to support the claim that female heads of government can have similar positive effects on their country’s economic bottom line.
In a study published in the Journal of International Affairs in 2013, researchers found that the presence of a female national leader was linked to a 6.6 percent increase in gross domestic product growth compared to when nation was under male leadership, particularly in ethnically diverse countries like Liberia and Iran.
The study, which looked at more than 100 countries over more than 50 years, found that gross domestic product growth under female leadership was less pronounced in less ethnically diverse nations like Australia and China.
“Finding direct effects of diversity is not easy, especially when you are looking at one level, and a level as high as the leadership of a country,” says Katherine W. Phillips, senior vice dean and the Paul Calello professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School and an author of the study. “Look at all the factors it takes to put gross domestic product together and the inconsistencies across countries. It’s complicated.”
Change in gross domestic product doesn’t happen overnight, says Susan E. Perkins, lead author of the report and associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “If a president makes a decision today, the earliest the effects of that decision are felt is the following year when the policy is in effect. Often, policy transformations can take up to five years or more.”
Being careful not to imply direct causation, she says it does make sense that women, whose leadership traits on average are more transformational, inclusive and less social dominance-oriented, affect economic growth more in countries with “higher levels of diversity and complexity.”
This may also be why countries particularly look to female leaders during times of conflict, experts say.
When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became president of Liberia in 2006, she was positioned as the national nurturer, primed to build social cohesion among warring tribes after a brutal civil war, says Perkins.
“During the campaign, there was a very open dialogue about gender and male leadership styles that got the country into such conflict,” says Labonte. “Her opponent was a very popular soccer star, but civilians in the country far and wide felt their future was going to be brighter with a female in the position of president rather than a man.”
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet was also elected president for her first term in 2006. Her platform was largely a continuation of her predecessor Ricardo Lagos’s government, says a Chilean citizen, but while she may not have created a different type of government, she did show a different type of leadership. Much of her campaign focused on traditionally feminine traits, like listening, and reducing childhood poverty.
“Women are not automatically biologically more caring,” says Cynthia Enloe, a research professor at Clark University, focusing on women in global politics. Instead, she says, they focus on a “caring kind of politics,” rising through the ranks of local government and deliberately cultivating their priorities on a path to leadership that is much more indirect and less defined than the one for men.
[READ: Whether Hillary Clinton Wins or Loses, the U.S. is Hardly a Bastion of Gender Equality.]
“There are deliberate choices that women may make and these decisions open them up to how social policies affect the lives of ordinary people,” Enloe says.
Before becoming president, Bachelet had a strong background in health and had recently served as Chile‘s minister for health. This offered a rather stark contrast to Lagos’s economics background.
Experts agree that inclusiveness, nurturing and empathy are not qualities that are unique to women, but are much more likely to be present in a female’s leadership style.
“Societies need to decide what kinds of values they want and cultivate leaders that hold those values,” says Labonte.
More from U.S. News
Why Europe, Asia and Latin America Elect More Female Leaders
Running a Country Is Far Different Than a Company, Experts Say
Despite Hillary Clinton’s Nomination, U.S. Hardly a Bastion of Gender Equality
Under Female Leadership, It Is All About the Economy originally appeared on usnews.com
