What is Gender Budgeting?

DOZENS of countries have passed equal-opportunity laws and adopted UN resolutions on women’s empowerment. They recognise the moral case for sexual equality and are persuaded by the economic one: educating and employing women boosts growth and tax revenue. In Latin America, for instance, eliminating sexual inequality in the labour market could boost GDP by 34%—or $2.6tn, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, a think tank. Yet closing gender gaps requires more than non-discrimination policies. Some governments are now turning to gender budgeting. What is it and how does it help? 

Gender budgeting is a way for governments to promote equality through fiscal policy. It involves analysing a budget’s differing impacts on men and women and allocating money accordingly, as well as setting targets—such as equal school enrolment for girls—and directing funds to meet them. While feminist advocates have tended to concentrate on laws and social policy, gender budgeting focuses on the national purse-strings. Finance ministries have traditionally treated gender as irrelevant to their work. But they are eager to target gender gaps when they understand the economic losses they carry.

For example, cutting welfare affects women disproportionately because they earn less to begin with and are more likely than men to be single parents. Similarly, slashing funding for public services such as child care, which is a common way to reduce public deficits, requires women to provide more unpaid labour at home, which in turn constrains their ability to participate in the labour force. In poorer countries, reduced funding for clean water or electricity can force girls and women to spend their days fetching water instead of going to school or work.  

Faced with these realities, governments have started to adopt gender budgeting. In South Korea it has led to funding for programmes that reduce women’s burden of caring after family, making it easier for them to join the workforce. In India and Rwanda, it has increased girls’ school attendance. In Austria it resulted in reform to reduce taxation on secondary earners, which had impeded women’s labour force participation, and a reallocation of funds to combat domestic violence, which exacts huge costs in medical treatment and lost labour. Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, wants the fund to incorporate gender budgeting in the advice it gives. If countries are serious about sexual equality, considering gender when setting budgets is a good place to start.