Managing migration: Female mayors and the intake of refugees

Abstract

This paper studies whether political leaders’ gender matters for crisis management. I examine female mayors in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia during the intake of Ukrainian refugees in 2022/23. I use granular data on fulfillment of the municipal refugee allocation quota and 2020 municipal election data. I use a two-way fixed effects specification to compare quota fulfillment of female and male mayors before and after the intake of Ukrainian refugees. I supplement this approach by using close mixed-gender mayorship races. Female mayors fulfill the allocation quota less than male mayors in response to the crisis. This difference is not driven by mayor or municipality characteristics. Instead, electoral competition is a plausible mechanism for female mayors’ lower quota fulfillment.