Gender budgeting

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.[1] 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.[2] This practice does not always target intentional discrimination, but rather forces an awareness of the effects of financial schemes on all genders.[3]

Gender budgeting can be characterized as a gender status and class-based policy.[4] As a gender status policy, gender budgeting has the purpose of doing away with power hierarchies that have conferred privileges to men and devalued the contributions made by women. Gender budgeting remedies the disadvantages and discrimination against women by incorporating them in the budgetary process and fighting marginalization and exclusion from economic, political, and constitutional processes. As a class-based policy, gender budgeting visualizes the sexual division of labor and exposed the consequent economic and social marginalization on women. Gender budgeting exposes such inequalities and sets the stage for the equalization of the status of women through the advancement of resources and civic rights to facilitate better access to services funded by governments.[4]

In public finance, there is insufficient evidence paid by policy makers and gender activists regarding the taxation section as gender activists should certainly be concerned about the revenue side of the budget.[5] There is a direct relationship between government expenditure and taxation; when there are no sufficient revenues, the expenditure programs will be unfunded and the chances to reach gender equity are less since taxes are the essence of government profits.[4] Henceforth, countries with insufficiently low revenues are generally unable to enhance public and social services which increases the burden on women to provide more care and social provision. In turn, women tend to fall outside the income tax threshold as they earn lower incomes than men.[5] It is implemented by ministry of women and child development.

Significance of Gender Budgeting

Gender budgeting primarily helps to dismantle gender inequalities. Gender inequalities are still visible in the modern society and are clearly demonstrated in entrepreneurship opportunities, labor participation, remuneration, education, health outcomes, governance, and personnel representation in top management positions.[6] 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 which recognizes women as key contributors to economic advancement.[6] Gender budgeting requires the auditing of public budgets to incorporate the gender differences that are cemented in social systems of reproduction. Public budgets tend to ignore key social reproduction roles such as the maintenance of domestic spaces, human relationships, and bodies which is mostly done by women. The auditing of gender budgets allows for the visualization of women's unpaid work of social reproduction and its contribution to the well-being of the entire society.[7]

Main activities

Three principal activities have been recognized as gender budgeting sensitive:

  1. At the institutional level, the goal is to understand policies promoted by governmental institutions and how these affect gender inequalities within a specific society.
  2. Analysis of the institutional budget, in order to see whether gender mainstreaming activities are included.
  3. Planning as well as implementing a gender-based budget that will focus on gender-related issues.

Point 3 most likely includes the restructuring of the existing budget to deal with gender-related issues.[1]

Gender budgeting depends on including a gender perspective when addressing funding allocations and programs.[8]

Emergence

The movement towards gender equity has gained impetus over the past 25 years throughout the world as the international community has dedicated itself publicly to promote gender equity realizing that equality between gender is essential for social development and economic growth.[9] Early efforts towards gender budgeting were fronted by the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which required signatory states to put in place appropriate measures to advance economic rights and promote gender equality.[6] The “International Bill of Rights for Women” or the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly setting an agenda for what constitutes as gender discrimination in hopes to take action to end it.[10] In 1995, The 4th UN conference on Women was held in Beijing which endorsed the obligation taken to end discrimination against women.[11] This particular platform called on governments to integrate gender equality into its implementation of all its budget processes to promote equal and appropriate resource allocation to foster equality.[7] By 2004, 179 out of 191 UN member states bounded themselves to take action to tackle the problem.[6]

Analysis

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.[12][13] Gender budget analysis plays a key role in highlighting discrimination against women and how money is distributed between two groups.[14] This type of analysis contributes to finding solutions to gender discrimination and highlights empowerment or disempowerment among two distinct groups: men and women.[1] 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.[15]

Depending on the country, there are specific processes that gender budgeting goes through. Nonetheless, in all cases, gender analysis and monitoring must be carried out in principle.[16] The stages for gender analysis are as follows:

i. Administration must prepare budget draft.

ii. Parliament debates the budget.

iii. Budget implementation should be monitored.

iv. Budget implementation should be reported and accounted.[16]

In order for a gender budget to be successfully adopted and implemented, certain actions are considered necessary. These actions are divided into three phases: advocacy and agenda-setting, formal adoption, and implementation of the gender-aware budget.[7] Advocacy and agenda-setting involves the creation of a pro-equality climate through commitment to gender equality and mainstreaming, advocating for political change, understanding the process of making budgets, pushing for favorable economic conditions, and supporting the implementation of a gender-quality framework.[7] The formal adoption process encompasses the formulation of clear frameworks for gender budgets, engaging important actors such as government officials and politicians, and building the necessary political will.[7] Lastly, the implementation phase covers the collection of evidence in practice, effecting political leadership, and coming up with strategies to promote continuity.[7]

In practice

Gender budgeting in practice aims to prepare separate documents evaluating programs designed by the government for women in which the budget is then presented. These can come in different forms such as official budget proposals or just merely papers sketched from interest groups outside the government zone.[17]

1. Expenditure effects evaluated: Expenditure is evaluated by disaggregating the spending of the government into categories beneficial for women and girls.[17]

2. Revenue effects evaluated: Another recent initiative to assess revenue policies is by aiming to fully end discrimination against women in the personal income tax.[17]

Gender budgeting has been put to practice across many countries and its impacts assessed. The 2016 OECD Survey of Gender Budgeting Practicesis one of the few existing documentations of 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.[6] The process of gender budgeting tends to be varied across countries as there is lack of consensus on the most effective approach. Three broad categories of gender budgeting systems have been identified:

  1. Gender-informed resource allocation where decisions on resource allocation are based on the impact that such distribution has on gender equality;[6]
  2. Gender-assessed budgets where the overall effect of the budget is subjected to gender analysis;[6] and
  3. Needs-based gender budgeting where needs assessments lay the foundation for key budget decisions to give an understanding of the existing gender disparities and which policy approaches can have the most impact on gender equality.[6]

Developments

To overcome gender-blind policies and budgets many feminists and 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 in the United States and all over Europe.[18][19][20]

In the United States there have been gender budgeting efforts in California and Georgia.[19] San Francisco, CA began developing a gender sensitive budget in 1998; Fulton County, GA began gender budgeting efforts in 2007.[21] In Georgia, gender budgeting researchers have gathered rich and useful data through interviews with policymakers concerned with gender equality and through multiple meetings involving a focus group composed of task members of different departments.[19] In California, relevant data was collected through interviews, observations of a commission meeting, from non-profit organizations, and from the municipal website.[19]

In Europe, many countries have joined efforts in implementing gender sensitive budgets. Spain, Iceland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Turkey, and the United Kingdom have all conducted research, collected data, and practiced different methodologies concerning gender budgeting.[18] Vienna University of Economics and Business organized a conference with twenty different countries; this allowed for the countries to share their conceptual ideas, theories, and experiences.[20] This engagement transformed economic models to focus on feminist economics, which take gender relations into account.[18]

Impact

The impact of gender budgeting is hard to pinpoint owing to the recency of the practice and the unavailability of adequate data to support its usefulness. In countries which have introduced gender budgeting, indicators of the usefulness of the practice have emerged in the stimulation of policy adoption to address gender inequality in such key areas as education, income disparities, security, health outcomes, social and economic welfare, political representation, and labor participation.[6] With more data on gender budgeting becoming available with time, its impact will be assessed and feedback incorporated to the generation of better policies.

Challenges

When implementing gender budgeting into policy there are many challenges and limitations. Many countries struggle to introduce the concept of gender budgeting.[20] Political, regional, and cultural factors are used as indicators to measure gender equality. These indicators are vital in the gender budgeting process; however, they fail to determine whether or not an ultimate goal has been reached.[19] Also, gender budgeting is interdisciplinary, so different scholars struggle to accept techniques of gender budgeting.[19] Feminists face the issue in trying to promote gender budgeting is creating connections and relationships with political actors that will pursue gender budgeting developments.[20]

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References
  1. UNESCO (2015). A Guide for Gender Equality in Teacher Education Policy and Practices (PDF). Paris, UNESCO. pp. 72–75. ISBN 978-92-3-100069-0.
  2. "What is gender budgeting?". The Economist. Retrieved 2017-10-21.
  3. Gender and the Economy (2017-10-20). "Gender budgeting: A tool for achieving equality". Gender and the Economy. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  4. O'Hagan, A. 2015. Favourable conditions for the adoption and implementation of gender budgeting: Insights from comparative analysis. Politica Economica, 31(2), 233-252.
  5. Valodia, I. 2009. Gender, poverty and taxation: An overview of a multi-country study of gender and taxation. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, (81), 137-147. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27868988
  6. 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
  7. Addabbo, T., Lanzi, D. & Picchio, A. 2010. Gender budgets: a capability approach. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 11(4), pp.479-501, retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Antonella_Picchio/publication/227620162_Gender_Budgets_A_Capability_Approach/links/00b495362673128758000000/Gender-Budgets-A-Capability-Approach.pdf
  8. "Gender budgeting". EIGE. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  9. Rubin, M., & Bartle, J. 2005. Integrating Gender into Government Budgets: A New Perspective. Public Administration Review, 65(3), 259-272. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3542503
  10. "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women". www.un.org. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  11. United Nations. 1995. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Retrieved from www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/ plat2.htm
  12. 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.)
  13. Quinn, S. 2009. Gender Budgeting: Practical implementation handbook. Strasbourg, Council of Europe, Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs.
  14. 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.)
  15. Stotsky, Janet Gale (2006-10-01). Gender Budgeting. International Monetary Fund. p. 12. ISBN 9781451864922.
  16. Klatzer, E., & Stiegler, B. 2011. Gender budgeting - an equality policy strategy. (12), 8.
  17. Stotsky, J. G. 2007. Budgeting with Women in Mind. 9.
  18. O'Hagan, Angela; Klatzer, Elisabeth (2018-02-23). Gender Budgeting in Europe: Developments and Challenges. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-64891-0.
  19. Dena, Mercy K. Public budgeting with a gender lens : Fulton County, Georgia and San Francisco, California. OCLC 854843852.
  20. Addabbo, Tindara; Gunluk-Senesen, Gulay; O'Hagan, Angela (2015). "Gender Budgeting: Insights from Current Methodologies and Experiences in Europe". Politica Economica (2/2015). doi:10.1429/80929. ISSN 1120-9496.
  21. Budlender, Debbie (2008-12-01). "Aid Effectiveness and Gender-responsive Budgets". doi:10.14217/9781848590274-5-en. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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