1.

Trends in indicators of gender equality and

indexes of gender equality.
2. Gender budgeting in its fiscal context.
3. Gender budgeting in Latin America.

Education trends by region, 1980-2014

Average Female-Male Ratio by Region

Female-male ratio of gross secondary enrollment

1
.9
.8
.7
.6
.5

Year
Africa

Asia and Pacific

Europe

Middle East and Central Asia

Americas and Caribbean

Note: Population-weighted mean averaged over 5 years; data acquired from the World Bank.

Health trends by region, 1980-2014

Average Female-Male Ratio by Region

Female-male ratio of life expectancy (at birth)

1.12
1.1
1.08
1.06
1.04

Year
Africa

Asia and Pacific

Europe

Middle East and Central Asia

Americas and Caribbean

Note: Population-weighted mean averaged over 5 years; data acquired from the World Bank.

Economic opportunity trends by region, 1980-2014

Average Female-Male Ratio by Region

Female-male ratio of labor force participation rate (ages 15 - 64)

.8
.7
.6
.5
.4
.3

Year
Africa

Asia and Pacific

Europe

Middle East and Central Asia

Americas and Caribbean

Note: Population-weighted mean averaged over 5 years; data acquired from the World Bank.

Gender Development Index (GDI)

Gender Inequality Index (GII)
Gender Equality Index (GEI)
Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI)
Social Institutions & Gender Index (SIGI)
Womens Economic Opportunity Index
(WEOI)

Top 3 countries
GEI

GII

SIGI

GGGI

WEOI

GDI

0.864

Sweden

90.40

Estonia

1.042

Finland

0.845

Norway

88.31

Russia

1.038

Norway

0.840

Finland

88.15

Lithuania

1.036

Canada

1.021

Netherlands

0.045

Argentina

0.007 Iceland

Lithuania

1.017

Sweden

0.055

Costa Rica

0.022

Estonia

0.996

Denmark

0.057

Paraguay

0.065

Bottom 3 countries
GEI

GII

SIGI

GGGI

WEOI

GDI

Pakistan

0.422

Yemen

0.747

Mali

0.601

Yemen

0.505

Sudan

19.23

Afghanistan

0.602

Afghanistan

0.427

Afghanistan

0.712

Sudan

0.525

Pakistan

0.548

Chad

23.29

Niger

0.714

Chad

0.444

Niger

0.707

Congo, D.R.

0.513

Chad

0.560

Yemen

24.65

Yemen

0.738

Note: The GEI is based on 2010 data and GDI is on 2013, while the GII, SIGI, GGGI, and WEOI are based on 2012. The values of GEI, GGGI
WEOI and GDI increase with more equality, and GII and SIGI increase with more inequality.

Where do gender considerations fit into the

public budgeting process?

We start from the premise that womens development is

economically and socially beneficial to women and to
the societies in which they live (World Bank, 2011).
Similarly, reducing gender inequality is beneficial to
women and to the societies in which they live.
The scope for gender budgeting arises in that public
budgeting for a variety of reasons may not adequately
take into account the benefits of womens development
and reduced gender inequality.

Gender budgeting defined:

Gender budgeting is a means to ensure that

government programs and policies incorporate the
perspective of womens development /womens equality
(Budlender et al., 2002).
Because of the weak voice of women in politics and
government bureaucracies, womens developmental
concerns are unlikely to be fully taken into account.
The role of gender budgeting is therefore to commit the
budget process to weighing the benefits and costs of
womens development and then to taking action in
response to this evaluation.

Externalities:

The concept of externalities provides a supporting economic

rationale for gender budgeting.
The persistent inadequacy of the government budget
process to meet womens development needs suggests that
economic forces contribute to this neglect.
Those activities that cause positive externalities are
undertaken insufficiently compared to the ideal market
outcome.
Womens development and equality produces positive
externalities.

Care economy:

In the typical distribution of labor within the household,

women do most of the work of reproduction and care,
which produces a positive externality to society, in that
women take on the burden of activities that would
otherwise fall upon other members of the household or
the government.
Even with the rapid changes in society over the past
decades, women still bear the disproportionate share of
burden of the care economy.
There is thus a positive externality from this work, which
gender budgeting can take into account.

Equity versus efficiency trade-off:

The concept of externalities also encompasses notions of

equity. It is often presumed that there is a trade-off between
efficiency goals and equity goals because redistribution
through government in the form of taxes or subsidies
induces a loss of welfare by distorting private preferences.
Gender budgeting is supported on both efficiency and equity
grounds.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) principles and the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) implicitly recognize
the efficiency and equity aspects of womens development
and equality (Elson, 2006).

Macroeconomic aspects:

Gender-related considerations have an important role to

play in macroeconomics (Stotsky, 2006).
The national budget is a critical component of fiscal policy,
from a macroeconomic perspective. The stance of fiscal
policy is a key summary indicator (supplemented by primary,
structural and other measures).
Fiscal policy interacts critically with monetary and exchange
rate policies and structural measures to determine how a
countrys macroeconomy evolves.

Fiscal stance, pace of adjustment, and

incidence:

Gender budgeting could in principle play a role in

determining the fiscal stance if it was a significant
determinant of the desired budget balance or the pace of
fiscal adjustment. This recognition can be explicit or implicit.
An important aspect of gender budgeting is that when the
fiscal stance shifts, spending and revenues change and there
is an incidence of these changes that can be examined from
a gender lens. A growing literature assesses this incidence.

Medium term considerations:

Sharp (2003) suggests combining gender budgeting with

other budget initiatives including performance budgeting,
which focuses on outputs and outcomes.
Gender budgeting should be set in a medium term context
because many measures to reduce gender inequalities bear
fruit over the medium term.
The emphasis on the medium term is especially important
when looking at education and health programs because
they are geared to the accumulation of human capital and
increased human productivity. Similarly for infrastructure.

Several key questions:

Who would be responsible for integrating it into the budget

process?
How would it be integrated?
What would be the scope of issues to be covered under
gender budgeting?
The answers to these questions are linked. Let us assess
gender budgeting in its practical context.

Who is responsible for gender budgeting in

government?

Given that the Minister of Finance is responsible for

delivering on the budget, the only meaningful way to ensure
that gender budgeting is undertaken as an integral part of
the budget process is to assign responsibility to the Ministry
of Finance or relevant budget agency.
Spending and revenue agencies should be part of the
process of analysis and discussion.
The legislative branch also has an important role to play.
Civil society should be involved.

 How?
Gender budgeting could be undertaken as a specific exercise
of the government or it could be integrated into the budget
process as a matter of standard practice. The theoretical
arguments suggest that the latter is appropriate.
If gender budgeting is good budgeting, then the budgeting
process is incomplete without it.
As a practical matter, special exercises that identify and try
to quantify and analyze gender budgeting components
might be useful on a regular but supplemental basis.

 Scope?

As a matter of practical policy, it may be necessary to set

specific goals for gender-related objectives. Thus we move
from the ideal to the practical.
Establishing, assessing the best way to achieve, and
reporting on these goals should be an essential aspect of the
budget process.
Having appropriate sex-disaggregated data is important.
Several international efforts are underway to improve the
collection of sex-disaggregated data.

Subnational governments:

Gender budgeting may have applicability at the subnational

level.
A key consideration is the assignment of spending and
revenue responsibilities. In some countries, education and
health spending is largely a national responsibility and
others, especially bigger ones, there may be a larger
subnational role.
We often speak of states or local governments as the
laboratory for democracy. Gender budgeting initiatives
might work best where there is strong support and can then
be extended once the benefits are demonstrable.

 Education:

This is a key area where gender budgeting can have

substantive effect.
The goal is to equalize educational opportunities for males
and females. As a practical matter, in some parts of Latin
America, this is close to accomplished while in others, this
remains a goal. However, for underprivileged parts of the
community, gender gaps tend to remain wider.
It is important to examine primary, secondary, and tertiary
education and also the quality of this education and whether
girls are encouraged to study math and sciences and not just
less technical fields.

 Health care:
This is another key area where gender budgeting can have
substantive effect.
The goal is to ensure that girls and women have good quality
health care at all stages of life.
The goals are often set in terms of maternal mortality and
ensuring that pregnant women receive all needed services.
Rural areas tend to be the most underserved and reducing
the number of births unattended by trained health
specialists is a key goal.
Sanitary facilities for girls is key to keeping them in school
beyond primary age in rural areas.

 Infrastructure:

This encompasses a wide range of critical public

investments.
Because women and girls remain disproportionately
responsible for household chores, they also benefit the most
from investments in water and electrification technologies,
which reduce the time and effort of household chores.
Similarly, transportation and other agricultural extension
services to help rural farming families can also
disproportionately help women to improve the lives of their
families.

 Funding for administration:

To the extent that government tries to bring about womens

advancement and equality through legislation and
regulations, it must also provide the administrative
machinery for the laws and regulations to be enforced.
It is thus essential that proper funding be provided to
support the goals of government.
Otherwise, the aspirations are not likely to be achieved.

Employment:

For some countries, gender budgeting involves civil

service goals on womens participation.

Procurement:

Another approach is to focus on government

contracting and procurement and ensuring adequate
womens participation.

Statistics:

Some government have focused on improving collection of

sex-disaggregated statistics as a means to improve analysis
of outcomes.

Gender bias:

There are many inherent gender biasesboth explicit and

implicitin tax systems (Stotsky, 1997).
Explicit biases take the form of discrimination in laws.
This is most likely to be found in the personal income tax.
There are still some examples in Latin America.
Implicit biases take the form of the laws having a differential
impact on men and women.
This is most likely to be found in indirect taxes, such as value
added tax or excises, or trade taxes, or even wealth and
corporate income taxes.

Personal income tax:

Explicit gender discrimination in the personal income tax

may take several different forms, including the rules
governing the allocation of shared income (such as nonlabor
income and income from a family business), the allocation of
exemptions, deductions, and other tax preferences, as well
as the setting of tax rates and legal responsibilities for
paying the tax.
Implicit gender bias is often seen as the result of increasing
marginal tax rates that may discourage secondary workers in
a household from working.

Indirect taxes and international trade

taxes:

Indirect taxes may also contain gender biases, though

explicit biases are less likely since the tax is impersonalized.
Implicit biases arise for several reasons.
For instance, under sales taxes, there may be differential
application or rates applied to different commodities.
Similarly for taxes on international trade.

Grown and Valodia (2010) explore these issues in depth in a

volume that presents case studies on a mix of eight
advanced and developing countries from around the world.
The book applies the same methodology to the analysis of
the incidence of direct and indirect taxes broken down by
gender. Argentina and Mexico are studied in this volume.
With regard to direct taxes, they focus on personal income
tax, which is based on individual filing in these countries and
thus lends itself to a breakdown by gender. The studies
examine the different ways in which these taxes incorporate
explicit and implicit discrimination and how the statutory
incidence of the tax varies by gender.

With regard to indirect taxes, they focus on the value-added

tax and excises. They make use of the division of households
into gender types. They test sensitivity to defining household
type by majority of adults of one sex in the household and
also the household breadwinner, whether individual or
shared. The studies find that the incidence by gender varies
across the different tax systems.
For value-added taxes, the incidence depends greatly on the
pattern of rate structure (whether there is one rate or a
reduced rate for certain necessities such as essential food
and childrens goods) and on the pattern of zero-rating and
exemptions.

Examples.

The countries below represent the most significant gender

budgeting examples in Latin America. These are:
Mexico
Ecuador
Costa Rica

Chile is an example of a country that has done a lot toward

womens advancement but outside the framework of gender
budgeting.
Canada has an active group outside government preparing
an analysis each year of the impact of the budget on women.

Mexico has had initiatives since 2000. These have involved the three
levels of government, national, state and local, and also engaged civil
society.
Every year the Federal Budget (Presupuesto de Egresos de la Federacin)
includes a related Annex. In 2015, it is Annex 13 named Resources for
Women and Gender Equality. This annex lays out the resources for
womens issues.
Additionally the National Womens machinery (Instituto Nacional de las
Mujeres (INMUJERES)) is responsible for gender policies at national level,
and has been involved in gender budgeting work.
By 2015, almost all state level offices of INMUJERES in Mexico have done
or are working on some area of gender budgeting.

Ecuador has also had significant experience with gender budgeting at the
national level. At one time, there was a gender budgeting department in
the Ministry of Finance.
In Ecuador, this work has involved the parliament, the three levels of
government, national, state and local , as well as civil society. The UNs
UNWomen local office is also a partner.
Ecuador has developed a budget classification for gender-related
spending, which is part of the Federal budget and for which all Ministries
are required to assign resources every year.
Legislative work has also supported gender equity.

Costa Rica has been working on GRB for a long time. Costa Ricas GRB started at the Womens Mechanisms level and has accomplished many legislation chang
In Costa Rica they have developed a lot of GRB training material for Government Officers, adapted to their own way of budgeting and planning.

Costa Rica also has had a longstanding gender budgeting program.

Costa Ricas program started at the level of a womens machinery and
has succeeded in bringing about legislative changes.
A womens machinery is also responsible for a National Gender Policy.
Costa Rica has developed a lot of gender budgeting training material for
government officers, adapted to their own way of budgeting and
planning.

Costa Rica has been working on GRB for a long time. Costa Ricas GRB started at the Womens Mechanisms level and has accomplished many legislation chang
In Costa Rica they have developed a lot of GRB training material for Government Officers, adapted to their own way of budgeting and planning.

Chile has not done gender budgeting but has taken important steps to
integrate the recognition of gender impact of public policies, especially
on new programs.

Budlender, Debbie, and Rhonda Sharp, with Kerri Allen, 1998, How to Do a Gender-Sensitive Budget Analysis: Contemporary
Research and Analysis (Commonwealth Secretariat and the Australian Agency for International Development).
Budlender, Debbie, Diane Elson, Guy Hewitt, and Tanni Mukhopadhyay, 2002, Gender Budgets Make Cents: Understanding
Gender-Responsive Budgets (London: Commonwealth Secretariat).
Demery, Lionel, 2000, Benefit Incidence: A Practitioners Guide (Washington, DC: World Bank).
Elson, Diane, 2006, Budgeting for Womens Rights: Monitoring Government Budgets for Compliance with CEDAW (New York:
UNIFEM).
Glick, Peter, Rumki Saha, and Stephen D. Younger, 2004, Integrating Gender into Benefit Incidence and Demand Analysis,
Cornell University Food and Nutrition Policy Program.
Greenspun, Samantha, and Nora Lustig, 2015, Gendered Fiscal Incidence Analysis: A Review of the Literature,
manuscript.
Grown, Caren, and Imraan Valodia, eds., 2010, Taxation and Gender Equity: A Comparative Analysis of Direct and Indirect
Taxes in Developing and Developed Countries (New York: Routledge).
Sharp, Rhonda, and Ray Broomhill, 2002, Budgeting for Equality: The Australian Experience, Feminist Economics, Vol. 8,
pp. 2547.
Stotsky, Janet G., 1997, Gender Bias in Tax Systems, Tax Notes International (June 9), pp. 191323.
Stotsky, Janet G., 2006, Gender Budgeting, International Monetary Fund Working Paper, 06/232 (Washington, DC:
International Monetary Fund).
Stotsky, Janet G., 2006, Gender and Its Relevance to Macroeconomic Policy: A Survey, International Monetary Fund
Working Paper, 06/233 (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund).
World Bank, 2011, World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development (Washington, DC: World Bank).

There is a web page for gender budgeting in Latin America:

www.presupuestoygenero.net, where there are many
Spanish publications.

Some specific recommendations:

Prez Fragoso, Luca, Elena Murtas, Jacqueline Durn, Bethsab Anda e Isabel
Alonso Cuervo. Bases para la Elaboracin de Presupuestos con Perspectiva de
Gnero en Entidades Locales. La visin de gnero en la programacin del gasto
pblico. Gender Budgeting, Proyecto URBAL. Unin Europea. 2008.

2) Prez Fragoso, Luca .Polticas econmicas en Amrica Latina y el Caribe en

perspectiva feminista: poltica fiscal en Sanchs, Norma (Comp.) Aportes al
Debate del Desarrollo en Amrica Latina. Una perspectiva feminista. ONU
Mujeres - IGTN Buenos Aires 2011: 125-134..