Transcript Gender Budget

An Introduction to Gender
Budgeting and the
Experience of the UK
Women’s Budget Group
Swedish Ministry of Finance
Stockholm, Sweden
October 8, 2004
9-12pm
UK Women’s Budget Group
• About the the WBG
• Working with Government
What is gender budgeting?
• Not a separate budget for women
• Analysing any form of public
expenditure, or method of raising
public money, from a gender
perspective
• A tool for testing a government’s
gender mainstreaming
commitments
Why do gender budgeting?
• Policy affects women and men
differently due to the existing
pattern of gender inequalities
• Evaluate the impact on the unpaid
economy as well as paid economy
Aims of gender budgeting
• To integrate a gender analysis into
economic policy
• To promote greater accountability
for government’s commitment to
gender equality
• To change budgets and policies
Benefits of gender
budgeting
• Reducing socio-economic gender
inequalities
• Improving policy efficiency
• Internal benefits for governments
Policy areas covered:
• Public spending and revenue
• National budget
• Gender machinery of government
How to do gender budgeting
• Evolving concept and practice
• Auditing revenue and expenditure
• Toolkits
• Stages in the budget cycle
• Gender budget statements
UK Examples
Case Study - New Deal for the Unemployed
• Flagship government scheme
• 57% to young unemployed; 23% long term
unemployed; 8% to lone parents; 12% other
N.D.s
BUT
• N.D. Young People - 72% men and 28%
women
• N.D. Long Term Unemployed - 84% men and
16% women
• N.D. for Lone 95% women
Transport
• Men are predominant users of
private transport (e.g. cars)
• Women more reliant on public
transport
• Women and men have different
patterns of transport use
Gender analysis of the budget
Questions explored
1. Making gender visible Who are the recipients?
2. Auditing revenue and How is spending/revenue
expenditure
distributed between
women and men?
3. Gender impact
What are implications in
assessment
the short and long term for
the gender distribution of:
- resources (money and
time)?
- paid and unpaid work?
Is provision adequate to
the needs of women and
men?
How does policy affect
gender norms and roles?
4. Gender
mainstreaming
How is gender taken into
account in policy
formulation, design and
implementation?
What priorities are given
to reducing gender
inequality?
5. Benchmarking
Requirements
Data disaggregated by sex
Expenditure and revenue
statistics disaggregated by sex
Data on the unpaid, caring
economy (i.e. a satellite
account incorporating time-use
data)
Micro-analytic model of
income distribution,
incorporating model of
economic (e.g. labour supply)
and other (e.g. fertility)
behaviour sensitive to gender
differentials
Sensitivity to gender
segregation, cultural practices
and gender norms and the
impact that policy has on
supporting or reconstructing
these.
Cooperation across government
agencies and across the policy
process
Awareness of the scope of
gender issues and ability to
search out more hidden aspects
of gender inequality
Tools to assess the aims and
priorities attached to policy
Are specific targets for
Awareness of complexity of
gender equality being met? gender inequalities when
setting targets
Ability to locate the policy and
other influences on particular
social phenomena
Gender Analysis of
Expenditure Project
• Pilot project to run for 6 months
from Spring 2003
• Joint HM Treasury, Women &
Equality Unit leadership of project
with WBG involvement
How did we do it?
• Pilot involving 2 government
department’s:
• Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
• Department for Trade and Industry (DTI)
• A brief high-level genderdisaggregated expenditure analysis for
each department
• A detailed gender disaggregated
expenditure analysis for up to 2
specific programmes
Why did HM Treasury do
it?
• Economic efficiency
• Service delivery
• Improved policy-making
• Customer focus
• Gender mainstreaming
Lessons
• Time
• Commitment
• Data
• Joint working with high level
support
• Targets