What is a Gender Budget?
- What is a gender budget?
- Why do a gender budget?
- Who does gender budgets?
- Gender budgets around the world
- What have gender budgets accomplished?
- Tools for implementing a gender budget
What is a gender budget?
A gender budget is not a separate budget for women. Rather, gender budgets are an attempt to assess government priorities as they are reflected through the budget and examine how they impact women and men and within that, certain groups of women and men. Gender budgets do not look at whether or not the same is spent on men and women but rather at what the impact of the spending is on men and women and whether or not budgets respond to the needs of both women and men adequately.
Budgets are not gender neutral. Budgets can either promote women’s equality or exacerbate women’s inequality — in other words, budgets can either increase income gaps and other forms of inequality between women and men, or they can lessen them. Budgets are one of the most influential policy documents governments have because without money a government cannot implement most other policies or programs. Gender budgets are however not simply about spending, they also examine government revenue — how a government gets the money it spends — and the implications of that for women and men.
“Women’s budgets”, “gender budgets”, “gender-sensitive budgets”, and “gender responsive budgets” are all terms that are used to describe initiatives that have used gender as lens from which to analyze budgets at national, regional, and civic levels.
Why do a gender budget?
The most obvious outcome of gender budget initiatives is improving women’s economic equality. However, gender budgets are not simply about equality for women. Gender budgets can also improve effectiveness, efficiency, accountability, and transparency of government budgets. Gender budgets can reveal discrepancies between what a government says it is doing and the actual impact of government policies. For example, a gender analysis of Canada’s Child Tax Benefit — purported to benefit the most vulnerable Canadian families — reveals that in most provinces the benefit is clawed back from the most vulnerable families, those on social assistance. Gender budgets also reveal budget priorities. FAFIA’s Gender Analysis of Federal Budgets 1995-2004 reveals a major emphasis on debt reduction overriding any other budget priorities. Gender budgets also provide a means for citizen engagement in public decision-making.
Gender budgets offer a practical way for governments to implement their obligations under international human rights agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA) which requires the, “integration of a gender perspective in budgetary decisions on policies and programmes, as well as the adequate financing of specific programmes for securing equality between women and men.” (PFA 345) and calls on governments to “facilitate, at appropriate levels, more open and transparent budget processes” (PFA 165i)
Who does gender budgets?
It is important for both people within and outside government to be involved in gender budgeting work. People inside governments can work to implement gender analysis policies in the budget process while activists from the broader community can push governments to consider the importance and benefits of gender equality. Community members can also encourage governments to make more gender-specific data available to them.
One of the outcomes of gender budgets is getting more people involved in the budget process, in other words, increased democracy. Budgets impact all peoples therefore everyone should be able to participate in their creation not simply those within government.
Gender budgets around the world
Australia was the first country to implement a women’s budget in 1984. Federal, state and territorial governments in Australia examined the impact of budgets on women and girls for 12 years until a change of government in 1996. South Africa’s Women’s Budget Initiative was initiated in 1995 and involves NGOs, parliamentarians, and a wide range of researchers and advisors. Gender budget initiatives in Tanzania(1997) and Uganda(1999) examine the impacts of structural adjustment programs in these countries and specifically focus on education and health. Many of the earlier gender budget initiatives focused primarily on the expenditure side rather than the revenue side of government budgets.
Since 1995 there have been gender budget initiatives in more than 60 countries around the world.
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… about gender budget initiatives around the world: Visit Learn More.
What have gender budgets accomplished?
Gender budget initiatives around the world have demonstrated significant successes. In particular, gender budget work has:
Influenced government spending
The Australia Women’s Budget (1984-1996), which was a government-led initiative, brought about a significant increase in spending in areas of importance to women. For example, between 1985 and 1996 federal assistance to families with children rose 27% while assistance to the aged rose 24%. There was also a five-fold increase in child care places for working women. Served as an “early-warning system” when neo-liberal agenda took hold. Women’s office was able to identify in advance what areas were likely to be cut and argue against those cuts.
The Philippines Gender and Development budget made a specific requirement that every government agency allocate at least five per cent of its budget to gender and development initiatives while maintaining the large objective of mainstreaming Gender and Development into the remaining 95 per cent of the budget. At the same time all government agencies are required to submit their Gender and Development plans to the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women for approval.
Influenced government policy
A major policy win of the United Kingdom Women’s Budget Group occurred in the March 2002 Budget when the government announced that from 2003 onwards the new Child Tax Credit would be paid to the main carer — usually a woman — rather than to the main earner — usually a man. The group used the slogan, “From the wallet to the purse”(men carry wallets while women carry purses) to argue that giving money to women was more efficient and in-line with government policy on reducing child poverty because women’s money has a greater positive impact on the well-being of children than does man’s. (Unfortunately, this argument was won on the basis of a policy related to children rather than on gender equality.)
The Working for Water Programme in South Africa followed the government’s commitment to “integrate gender analysis into budgetary processes”. The Programme decided that 60 per cent of all wages should be paid to women, 67 per cent in rural areas and placed a special emphasis on flexible working time for single parents. Of the 42,000 jobs created in the first part of 1998, 55 per cent went to women.
Demonstrated inefficiencies in government spending
In Korea, a gender budget initiative demonstrated that most of the beneficiaries of training and education programs were leaders or women from women’s organizations. For example, a video conference education program attracted a lot of attention but it was questionable whether the process could affect ordinary women’s lives. Given the high expense of the project, it would have been far more cost-effective and useful to organize lectures within each region or to pay local women’s organizations to organize them.
Highlighted lack of real government commitment to gender equality
The Korean gender budget initiative demonstrated that some of the Korean government’s women-related policies such as sponsoring beauty contests (over 100 held nationally), courses for girls in make-up, skin care, and etiquette, and the ‘A happy wife and a successful husband’ lecture held at a Women’s Fair actually reinforced stereotypical notions of femininity rather than challenging gender stereotypes and empowering women.
Provided women’s organizations access to government decision-makers
The United Kingdom Women’s Budget Group has capitalized on Prime Minister Tony Blair’s policy of participatory government and now has privileged, sustained access to officials in Treasury.
The Tanzanian Gender Networking Program has worked hard to build alliances which has led to a great deal of trust between government and non-governmental players. The TGNP now acts as an ongoing consultant to the Ministry of Finance in the area of gender responsive budgeting.
Involved and empowered women to be a part of the budget process and made the budget process more participatory
The Ugandan gender budget initiative led by the Forum for Women in Democracy has served to make the entire National Budget process increasingly more participatory. Civil society organizations such as the Forum for Women in Democracy and the Uganda Debt Network are members of the Poverty Eradication Working Group under the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development whose mandate is to ensure that government budgets address the needs and concerns of marginalized groups such as women, people with disability, and those living in poverty.
Many initiatives have worked with the media to educate the broader population on issues around women’s equality and the budget.
Increased accountability and transparency of government budgets
The Uganda Gender Budget Initiative’s advocacy campaign contributed to the creation of the Budget Law and Budget Act which has increased involvement in the budget process by both civil society and parliamentarians and provided increased access to government budget documents that would previously have been inaccessible.
Tools for implementing a gender budget
Because gender budgeting is a relatively new process the tools for its implementation are still being developed. There is no single blueprint and the processes vary by region. Each initiative in each country has made in-roads wherever possible using the resources and expertise available to them.
Some countries have focused on specific departments while some have focused on educating the broader population on the budget process.
Examining government expenditures has been one of the most common tools in gender budget initiatives. The three categories examined include:
- Gender specific expenditures
- Expenditures that promote gender equity within the public service
- General or mainstream expenditures
The following set of gender budgeting tools — essentially questions that help to analyze budgets from a gender lens — is outlined in Looking at the Economy Through Women’s Eyes published by the Irish Women’s organization Banulacht. These questions are based on tools developed by UK economist and member of the UK Women’s Budget Group, Diane Elson:
- Will government policies reduce, maintain or increase gender inequalities? (Also called gender-aware policy appraisal)
- What kind of spending would women prioritise in the budget? (Also called gender-disaggregated beneficiary assessment)
- Does public spending benefit women and men equally? (Also called gender-disaggregated public expenditure incidence analysis)
- What is the impact of budgets on women’s time? (Also called gender-disaggregated analysis of the impact of budget on time use)
- How do taxation policies impact women and men? (Also called gender-disaggregated tax incidence analysis)
- How can women influence budget planning? (Also called gender aware medium term policy framework)
- How can women ensure government accountability for gender equality? (Also called gender-responsive budget statement)
Download Diane Elson’s Gender Budget Initiative Tools — a set of Fact Sheets which summarize the tools mentioned above.
UNPAC has also developed a set of questions to ask that help uncover gender biases in the budget. These questions are a good way to get started on gender analysis:
- What are the particular needs, concerns, and realities of women in X area? Consider the differing roles of women and men in the community. Who does the paid work, unpaid caring work, and community work?
- How does spending in this area impact women and girls differently than men and boys?
- What are women and men’s particular needs in terms of programs, benefits, and services?
- Do women and men have equal access to programs, benefits, and services?
- Who benefits most from programs, benefits, and services?
- Does spending increase or decrease women’s and men’s workloads (paid and unpaid work)?
- Does spending increase or decrease women’s and men’s income and income-earning potential?
- Does spending increase or decrease women and men’s access to resources?
- Do budget expenditures in X area work to improve women’s economic equality or do they exacerbate existing inequalities?
- How are particular groups of women affected by spending in this area? Consider the realities of single mothers, older women, women living with disabilities, Aboriginal women, immigrant and racialized women, young women, and rural women.
- Who has control over decision-making on spending in this area? Are women and men consulted equally in the development and delivery of policy and programs?
- What are the long-term costs and consequences of not using gender analysis addressing women’s inequality?
- How does budget revenue and taxation work to improve women’s economic status rather than exacerbate existing inequalities between women and men? In other words, does the tax system keep women poor or work to improve women’s economic equality?
It is important to remember that you do not need to use all of these tools or ask all these questions in order to be doing the work of gender-sensitive budgeting. Most initiatives begin by asking just a few key questions. Start where you can with the resources you have available and see where that takes you.
Visit Learn More for more practical information on developing gender-sensitive budgets.
You can also download UNPAC’s Gender Budget Workshop materials.