Unemployment and COVID-19: A Comparative Study of OECD Countries based on Gender of Head of State

Abstract

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the leadership in controlling COVID-19 and its effects on unemployment growth in OECD countries. We have divided the countries into two groups, countries with a male head of state and countries with a female head of state. Our sample period covers three waves of COVID-19. We have performed the wavelet analysis to evaluate the unemployment movement and effect of daily new cases per million and daily deaths per million. The results of continuous wavelet analysis have shown a significant variation in unemployment in the countries with the male head of state, as compared to the other group of countries. Wavelet Transform Coherence analysis shows that daily deaths per million have positively affected the unemployment growth at the beginning of the pandemic. However, a small effect of daily deaths per million is observed in the countries with the female head of state during August 2020. Otherwise, unemployment growth remains unaffected at the start of the pandemic, unlike countries with the male head of state. These results suggest that women tend to follow a proactive leadership style.