In Latin America and worldwide, it is observed that there are fewer women holding positions of responsibility in various companies and sectors of economic activity. These gender gaps are important, especially in more developed countries. In addition, when women participate as entrepreneurs, they do so in less favorable conditions, since they are owners or leaders of smaller, less profitable companies, of lower growth, or more informal. One hypothesis states that all this happens because women tend to be more risk-averse than men, while most business positions are characterized by not being risk-neutral. Thus, the objective of this paper is to analyze whether, intrinsically, women tend to be more risk-averse than men in most of the decisions they make, whether at home or in the labor market. That would mark an important guideline in all those measures which are deployed globally to strengthen the leadership and empowerment of women in the economy.

Studying the Peruvian case was fundamental for the theoretical refining on electoral clientelism (Muñoz 2013, 2014) and, therefore, may also be useful for a comparative study of political patronage in Latin America. This new research is part of a comparative project on patronage in the region entitled "The Politics of Patronage in Latin America" and led by professors Francisco Panizza (London School of Economics), Guy Peters (University of Pittsburgh), Conrado Ramos (Universidad de la República del Uruguay) and Gerardo Scherlis (Universidad de Buenos Aires). Conventional studies of electoral clientelism and patronage in Latin America have focused almost exclusively on cases with a strong local party organization. However, in terms of the weakness of the party system, Peru may be more typical in Latin America than any other countries. Therefore, it is crucial to include Peru as an extreme case.