Emphasising inclusive leadership and driving economic growth

This month, we are celebrating the amazing women who are an integral part of Crowe Ireland. We are shining a spotlight on their outstanding accomplishments and recognising their commitment to accelerating action in their daily lives.

In this interview, we discover Poppy Cairns’ research, insights and inspirations as she examines the influence of female representation in parliament on economic growth and policy outcomes.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Poppy Cairns, I’m 23, I work in the Corporate Finance department in Crowe and I’m from Cork (even though I don’t have the accent).

As a woman, what would you tell your younger self?

Don’t be afraid to take up space and don’t buy jeans online.

What does the theme of “Accelerate Action” mean to you and how is it visible in your life?

To me, Accelerate Action is about being proactive and being intentional in your actions. For my dissertation, I chose to research the impact that having an increased number of female parliamentarians can have on a country’s economic growth and policy outcomes. I chose this topic because I wanted to be able to show that it benefits us all to have increased representation at the decision-making table.

Tell us some more about your research.

To research this I did a case study and an econometric analysis. Unfortunately, there aren’t many options for a country to use as a case study to show the impact of female representation, as few countries have reached even close to gender equality in parliament. Ireland for example only has 25% female representation in the Dáil. In the end, I chose Rwanda, which has the highest number of women in parliament at 64%, and for my econometric analysis I gathered data from a sample set of 108 countries.

I found that women in parliamentary positions positively influence gender-sensitive policies and inclusive development, though their impact on economic growth is less clear. However, other, more-in depth studies on this have found stronger positive correlation in favour of economic growth.

An interesting point that I took from Rwanda’s case is that because women rose to power after the Rwandan genocide, where men where disproportionately killed, their parliament was more progressive than society, making progressive policy implementation challenging and showing that society and government need to move in sync for effective change to come about.

Who is a woman who inspires you?

Esther Duflo – she is one of three women to be awarded a Nobel Prize for economics, compared to 90 men. Women who have managed to succeed in such heavily male-dominated fields are inspiring. I discovered her paper on “Women as Policymakers in India” while researching for my dissertation and have been inspired by her ever since.

How do you feel the theme “Accelerate Action” is visible in the workplace?

I think the theme is visible through things that seem small but make a big impact, such as sponsoring the UCD Ladies Hockey team. So many women stop playing sports in their early teens and women’s teams often don’t get the same support that men’s do, so it’s great to see Crowe supporting women in sports.