Gender budgeting means preparing budgets or analyzing them from a gender perspective. Also referred to as gender-sensitive budgeting, this practice does not entail dividing budgets for women. It aims at dealing with budgetary gender inequality issues, including gender hierarchies and the discrepancies between women's and men's salaries. At its core, gender budgeting is a feminist policy with a primary goal of re-orienting the allocation of public resources, advocating for an advanced decision-making role for women in important issues, and securing equity in the distribution of resources between men and women. Gender budgeting allows governments to promote equality through fiscal policies by taking analyses of a budget's differing impacts on the sexes as well as setting goals or targets for equality and allocating funds to support those goals. This practice does not always target intentional discrimination but rather forces an awareness of the effects of financial schemes on all genders.
OECD notes that gender budgeting is a way for governments to promote equality through the budget process against persistent gender disparities in education, employment, entrepreneurship, and public life opportunities and outcomes. Planning budgets with the promotion of gender equality in mind has the potential to help policymakers address a range of inequalities embedded in public policy and resource allocation.
Gender budgeting is set up to help close the gender gap. Gender budgeting helps achieve important standards of public financial management. Equality is a fundamental value of the European Union and a major goal of the European Commission. Equality for all and equality in every sense of the word play a central role in achieving a prosperous and social Europe.
Promoting equality is important not only from a moral argument but also from an economic perspective. Studies have highlighted that more equal economies benefit from higher employment rates in terms of income distribution and access to education and other services. Several studies have demonstrated that inequality has significant economic costs and that improving equality can boost EU growth. Budgets are an important means of increasing equity in all dimensions. Budget allocations are a central means of achieving these goals.
History Origin and emergence By the late 1970s, a broad range of specialized policy mechanisms were developed in the states of Australia to improve the economic and social status of women. This women's policy mechanism was not devised by the government but was developed by the so-called "femocrats" in the women's movement. These femocrats found employment in the women's policy sector and "created a feminist presence within the state itself". Against this background, the first gender budgeting initiative was undertaken in Australia in 1984.
Pioneering analyses of the impact of public budgets on gender relations were conducted, with the belief that budgets are an essential tool for promoting gender equality. This Australian effort was not only important for raising gender awareness, but also served as an important reference point for subsequent gender budgeting efforts.
1995 UN World Conference on Women In 1995, based on the discussions at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, the UN Women recommended that governments systematically review public sector expenditures and adjust their budgets to ensure gender equality in access to expenditures. Since then, gender budgeting has become internationally recognized as a strategy for strengthening gender equality.
Progress has been made in economic participation, political opportunities, health, and education, particularly in terms of significant improvements in girls' enrollment in primary education, strengthening of women's legal rights, and reduction in maternal mortality. Several multilateral institutions are currently promoting gender budgeting through research support, technical assistance for gender budgeting initiatives, and information dissemination. By 2004, 179 out of 191 UN member states bound themselves to take action to tackle the problem.Downes, R., Von Trapp, L. and Nicol, S., 2017. Gender budgeting in OECD countries. OECD Journal on Budgeting, 16(3), pp.71-107, Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/gender/Gender-Budgeting-in-OECD-countries.pdf
The G20-Women, the official engagement group of the G20, called for increased investment in gender budgeting to ensure that fiscal policies advance gender equality in the short- and long-term recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
Increasing transparency Gender budgeting also increases transparency and participation in the budget process. In particular, orthodox economics has neglected the "care economy," even though it constitutes an important part of the economy, along with profit-oriented markets and the public service sector. The care economy refers to unpaid production and services in the private sphere (family, neighborhood, community) based primarily on women's unpaid labor. Public budgets usually consider only the monetary economy. As a result, free care and services are excluded from the macroeconomic framework of the national budget. "Gender budgeting" is increasingly needed to correct these disparities.
Feminist economists and gender budget analysts such as Rhonda Sharp and Diane Elson have cautioned against the "false economy" associated with ignoring the care economy. Women's engagement in these "unpaid jobs" can lead to a lack of employment climate and a lack of social security. Thus, integrating care economies into economic policy in general, and gender budgets in particular is a more broadly appropriate approach to welfare efficiency and costs than the traditional concept of economies.
Objectives Gender budget analysis aims at finding out whether women and men can access the same opportunities equally. In gender budget analysis, gaps are addressed so that those who are disadvantaged become empowered. A gender-sensitive budget analysis contains how budgets recognize and answer the needs of men and women, whether they are children, young, or adults.Balmori, H. H. 2003. Gender and Budgets, Overview Report. BRIDGE (development - gender) Brighton, Institute of Development Studies. http://www.eldis.org/v le/upload/1/document/0708/DOC19156.pdf (Accessed 5 July 2014.)Quinn, S. 2009. Gender Budgeting: Practical implementation handbook. Strasbourg, Council of Europe, Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs. Gender budget analysis plays a key role in highlighting discrimination against women and how money is distributed between the two groups.Elson, D. 2005. Monitoring Government Budgets for Compliance with CEDAW: Report highlights and key conclusions. NY, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). http://www.iwraw-ap.org/resources/pdf/ MonitoringGovernmentBudgetsComplianceCEDAW_summary_eng.pdf (Accessed 5 July 2014.) This type of analysis contributes to finding solutions to gender discrimination and highlights empowerment or disempowerment among two distinct groups: men and women. Gender budgeting is not intended to look only at female budgets or policies but to rather examine the effects that gender has on all programs and policies.Stotsky, J. (2016). Gender Budgeting : Fiscal Context and Current Outcomes. IMF Working Papers, 16(149), 1.
The Council of Europe (2005) defines five objectives of gender budgeting: the first one being the most straightforward and the following ones, more implicit objectives that gender budgeting can also achieve.Council of Europe. 2005. Gender budgeting. https://rm.coe.int/1680596143
1. Gender equality
Gender budgeting primarily helps to dismantle gender inequalities. While these disparities may be associated with traditional aspects, especially on the cultural roles of men and women, they demonstrate inequalities in the allocation of public resources. The purpose of gender budgeting is to remedy such inequalities by ensuring that public policy is designed and delivered in an inclusive manner. The fundamental objective is then to use the budget and related policies to achieve gender equality as part of human rights. It will raise awareness about unintended and indirect discrimination against women.
2. Accountability Gender budgeting is a tool to monitor whether the government's commitments to gender equality are effectively translated into budgetary commitments.Sharp, R., Broomhill, R. 2002. Budgeting for Equality: The Australian Experience. In: Feminist Economics Vol. 1/8, p. 25-4 It facilitates the establishment of gender mainstreaming within government policies by assigning authorities clear responsibilities and by making it easier to know if they are meeting their gender equality objectives. Civil society and the media can therefore play an important role in monitoring and holding the government liable for their budgets.
3. Transparency and participation Gender budgeting helps increase participation in the budget process through public consultation, participation in budget preparation, or the monitoring of the outcomes which will thereby increase transparency.Gender budgeting. (s.d). European Institute for Gender Equality. https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/methods-tools/gender-budgeting
4. Efficiency Gender-responsive budgets can improve information on different situations and needs of women and men as well as on potential distributional effects of budget measures. This allows governments to take better-informed and more evidence-based decisions in a more efficient decision-making framework.
5. Good governance
Since gender inequalities are considered harmful to social cohesion, economic efficiency, and human development, gender budgeting can help to strengthen good governance in general. Due to the fact it can be considered as a tool promoting equal citizenship and fair distribution by reducing inequalities and poverty.
Tools There are different ways to implement gender budgeting. The process of gender budgeting tends to be varied across countries as there is a lack of consensus on the most effective approach These can come in different forms such as official budget proposals or just merely papers sketched by interest groups outside the government zone.Stotsky, J. G. 2007. Budgeting with Women in Mind. 9. Gender budgeting tools can play on the two major components of a budget :
Expenditure effects evaluated: Expenditure is evaluated by disaggregating the spending of the government into categories beneficial for women and girls. Revenue effects evaluated: Another recent initiative to assess revenue policies is by aiming to fully end discrimination against women in the personal income tax.
Gender budgeting has been put into practice across many countries and its impacts assessed. The 2016 OECD Survey of Gender Budgeting Practices is one of the few existing documents on the extent of the implementation of gender budgeting and its impact. The survey revealed that 15 out of the 34 surveyed countries had already introduced gender budgeting while others had plans to introduce the concept in their budgetary processes.
The following implementation tools of gender budgeting are presented with the OECD typology which uses a classification according to the level budgeting cycle stage.
Development by regions To overcome gender-blind policies and budgets many government officials from different countries took it upon themselves to analyze differences and propose budgets that are considerate of the inequalities women face financially. Developments have been in practice all over the world.