Tackling Inequality through Gender Budgeting

Gender budgeting is an approach to public policy making that puts gender analysis at the heart of budget processes, public finance and economic policy, as a means of advancing gender equality. It is a critical review of how budgetary allocations affect the economic and social opportunities of women and men, and it seeks to restructure revenue and spending decisions to eliminate unequal outcomes, while understanding the contexts in which those differences arise.

This report synthesises evidence on gender budgeting, presenting experiences from national and sub-national governments, and civil society actors from around the world. It includes examples of gender budgeting tools, methods and approaches which operate across multiple stages of the budget process and support longer term implementation.

There are three key elements to gender budgeting: i) gender-based assessment – gender impact assessments need to be supported by disaggregated and time-use data; ii) implementing changes based on gender analysis; and iii) working with relevant actors within and outside government.

The challenge to effective implementation of gender budgeting is not identifying the barriers to sustained implementation, but to achieving the structural, cultural and institutional changes required to make the transformation complete.

The Gender Equality Review has highlighted key areas of action for advancing gender equality, and gender budgeting is one institutional response. Many of the conditions necessary to support Wales in adopting its own form of gender budgeting are already in place in policy commitments on social and economic equality.

 

You can listen to our podcast on Gender Equality below. We ask what gender equality looks like in practical terms, what it looks like in other countries, and what still needs to happen before reaching the Welsh Government’s aim of becoming the UK’s first feminist government.

Guests include:

Cerys Furlong – Chief Executive of Chwarae Teg

Dr Angela O’Hagan – Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences in the Glasgow School for Business and Society, and Deputy Director of the Wise Centre for Economic Justice

Magnus Jacobson – Gender expert and Communication Strategist at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR)