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Auditing is a function that operates in the public interest. By confirming or denying companies' financial information, trust and value is created for external stakeholders. The signing auditor bears ultimate responsibility for the audit work that has been conducted and is required to provide a descriptive audit report in addition to each annual report. The auditor's report states the auditor's obligations and requirements, a confirmation or denial of the financial statements and any comments related to inaccuracies or a concern for the client's ability to continue the business. An objective audit of high quality is required to ensure the credibility of the presented reports.

Currently, 37.3% of all authorized auditors in Sweden are women. During the 1990s, gender research began to gain momentum and after a while the focus was directed at the differences that exist between men and women when it comes to positions on the labor market and the possibility of higher positions and leadership roles. Sweden has made a journey towards gender equality and continued during the early 2000s to reduce the differences that exist between men and women in the labor market, but a completely equal situation has not been reached.

Parallel to this, there has also been research on the cognitive behavioral differences between the sexes. This have shown that men and women have separate ways of processing information and seeing details. Risk management is also something that differs between the sexes, with women more easily overestimating the risk and thus feeling increased anxiety. All these elements are essential within the auditing profession and are required in the process of conducting the audit.

This quantitative study, starting with Type II errors and bankruptcies, has therefore investigated whether the differences between the sexes regarding cognitive behaviors have such a substantial impact that it is possible to see differences in the audit quality between the sexes. Connected to risk management, the recent corona pandemic has been added to investigate whether it resulted in any change in the potential quality differences during the pandemic. When the environment deviates from what is normal, the normally applicable principles may not be valid.

920 Swedish corporate bankruptcies with the latest fiscal year end date between 2017 and 2021 have been investigated to conclude if the auditor issued a going concern opinion in the latest audit report or not. If a comment was not issued and a bankruptcy followed, it was considered a Type II error which indicates lower audit quality. The results support, at a 5% significance level, that female auditors maintain a higher audit quality than their male colleagues. However, there is no statistically proven result that the corona pandemic have affected the difference in audit quality.