Gender Budgeting:Promoting Gender Equality Through Economic

Policy

Professor Claire AnnesleyUniversity of Manchester / Women’s Budget Group

claire.annesley@manchester.ac.uk

Presentation to International Parliamentary Conference on Gender and Politics Portcullis House, Westminster

7 November 2012

The Problem: Gender Inequality

• Some progress towards gender in terms of international, regional, national and local initiatives, strategies and policies.

• But gender inequality remains in employment, income, resources, education, health and personal safety.

• Danger that gender equality falls off the agenda in times of economic austerity.

Country at-risk-of-poverty rate by gender: 2010

• http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_266844.pdf_266844.pdf

The Case for Gender Budgeting

• Gender Budgeting is a powerful tool to promote gender equality in economic policy. Including in times of economic austerity.

• What is Gender Budgeting?• Why Gender Budgeting?• How it is done? And by whom?• A case study of the UK: recent examples of

Gender Budget analysis by MPs and UK WBG.

What is Gender Budgeting?

• It is not a separate budget for women. • It is not about spending the same on men and

women. • It is about whether spending is adequate to

meet men and women’s needs. • The analysis of any form of public

expenditure or method of raising public money from a gender perspective.

Why Gender Budgeting?

• Budgets are not ‘neutral’ (Elson 1998). • Existing patterns of gender inequality mean

that budgets affect men and women in distinct ways.

• Important to take into account impact of budgets on paid and unpaid economies.

• Gender budgeting can promote equality and efficiency in economic decision making (Himmelweit 2002).

How to do Gender Budgeting

• Wide range of tools & methods, for example:– Beneficiary assessments– Public expenditure incidence analysis– Tax incidence analysis– Gender impact analysis– Gender mainstreaming

• GB can be done at any point of the budget cycle: planning identifying objectives financial allocation evaluating outcomes.

Who can do Gender Budgeting?• Gender Budgeting can be done by actors

inside and outside government. • Government: Ministry of Finance; Ministry for

Women / Equality; other Government departments

• Civil Society groups: holding government to account.

• Parliament: scrutinising budgets; questions.

Gender Budgeting in Parliament

• Cross-national variation in parliamentary roles and capacities regarding the budgetary process.

• Constraints in gender budgeting due to: party discipline; legal frameworks; weak committee system; time.

• But: trend towards growing role of parliaments in budgetary process (IPU 2004).

Facilitating Gender Budgeting in Parliament

• Boost the representation of women in Parliament.

• Reform legal frameworks to give parliament a meaningful role in budgetary process.

• Improve gender budgeting research and know-how. In-house and through links with non-parliamentary experts.

• Questions to ministers e.g. relating to the gender breakdown of expenditure figures.

Facilitating Gender Budgeting in Parliament

• Boost women’s representation on parliamentary committees that deal with budget scrutiny. Positive action? Quotas?

• Require parliamentary scrutiny bodies to take evidence from women’s organisations and women service users.

• Develop toolkits and questions for parliamentary scrutiny bodies to consider gender perspective.

Case Study: Gender Budgeting in the UK

• Elections May 2010 led to change of government from Labour Party to Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition.

• Emergency Budget June 2010 set direction of economic policy: to reduce public deficit through rapid cuts in public spending rather than by raising income through taxation.

• Gender Budget Analysis of economic policy produced by MPs in Parliament and organisations such as WBG.

Gender Budgeting Actors in the UK• HM Treasury (Ministry of Finance)– Since 2010 weak record of gender budgeting

despite legal obligation. – Since September 2012 no female members of

government in Treasury team. • UK Women’s Budget Group – Since 1989 an independent organisation made up

of academics, members of NGOs and trade unions: www.wbg.org.uk;

– Detailed analysis of budgets, spending reviews, policy reforms.

Gender Budgeting Actors in the UK

• Parliamentarians 145/650 women = 22.3%• Individual MPs, e.g. Yvette Cooper, Kate Green. • Committees– Treasury: 2/13 women (15.3%); male chair (Andrew

Tyrie)– Public Accounts: 4/14 women (28.5%); female chair

(Margaret Hodge)– Work and Pensions: 7/11 women (63.6%); female

chair (Anne Begg).

Gender Budgeting in the UK

• Gender Budgeting analysis by MPs and WBG reveals that:– Austerity policies are being paid for predominantly

by women – Certain groups of women – lone parents and

single pensioners - are particularly harshly affected

– Progress made towards gender equality is being threatened.

1/ UK Budgetary Decisions • Gender audit of Budget and Spending Reviews

commissioned by Labour MP Yvette Cooper, carried out by House of Commons library.

• Analysis of the changes to main personal tax and benefit measures announced in the Budget.

• For each tax or benefit change it looks at:• the total amount cut or raised• the number of men and women that pay it • and works out approximately how much of the

revenue comes from men and how much from women (or is given back to men or women).

1/ UK Budgetary Decisions

• Finding: • In June 2010 Budget, of the £9bn net revenue

to be raised by the financial year 2014-15, £6.4bn will be from women, in contrast with £2.6bn from men.

71% from women• http://www.yvettecooper.com/women-bear-b

runt-of-budget-cuts

1/ UK Budgetary Decisions

• Yvette Cooper / House of Commons Library repeated the analysis for subsequent economic decisions to calculate combined effect of:

• June 2010 Budget + Comprehensive Spending Review 2010 + 2011 Budget + 2011 Autumn Statement + 2012 Budget.

• Finding: £11.1bn will be from women in contrast with £3.8bn from men

74% from women

2/ Comprehensive Spending Review 2010

• CSR in October 2010 set out cuts to public spending across government departments.

• Public expenditure incidence analysis conducted by the UK Women’s Budget Group with Landman Economics.

• Uses household data on service use to model the effects of spending on several areas, most importantly:– Health– Education– Social Care– Social Housing– Transport

• http://wbg.org.uk/RRB_Reports_4_1653541019.pdf

Effects of spending cuts by family type: as % of net income, all services

-14%

-12%

-10%

-8%

-6%

-4%

-2%

0%

singl

ew

omen

singl

e m

en

coup

les

men, women and couples

chan

ge in

livi

ng st

anda

rds

(ann

ual)

flat-rate

other service-relatedtransport

housing

social care

education(HE/FE/skills)education(schools)

Effects of spending cuts by family type: as % of net income, all services

single, no children

lone parents

couple without children

couple with

childrensingle

pensionercouple

pensioner

-20%

-18%

-16%

-14%

-12%

-10%

-8%

-6%

-4%

-2%

0%

flat-rateother service-relatedtransporthousingsocial careeducation (HE/FE/skills)education (schools)

family type

chan

ge in

livi

ng st

anda

rds (

annu

al)

3/ Indirect Taxation

• Value Added Tax (VAT) raised to 20% but tax on fuel (petrol and diesel) kept stable.

• Analysis of the gendered impact of measures regarding indirect taxation commissioned for Women’s Budget Group, by Jerome De Henau and Cristina Santos.

• http://wbg.org.uk/pdfs/Indirect_tax_Budget_2011_final_report_June_20.pdf

Indirect Tax Increases• VAT increased from 17.5% to 20% in the June 2010 Budget,

with effect from 4 January 2011. • Estimated to raise £12,100 million in 2011/12 fiscal year.

Who pays?

Figures: Impact of rise in VAT, by household composition and type: increase in cash amount paid by households and percentage points change incidence on household income

• Lone mothers, pensioner couples and couples with children pay the most as a proportion of their income.

£0.00£1.00£2.00£3.00£4.00£5.00£6.00£7.00£8.00

Couple hh Single man hh Single woman hh

Pensioner hh Working-age hh w/ children Working-age hh w/o children

0.00%

0.20%

0.40%

0.60%

0.80%

1.00%

1.20%

1.40%

Couple hh Single man hh Single woman hh

Pensioner hh Working-age hh w/ chi ldren Working-age hh w/o children

Indirect Tax Giveaways• In March 2011 Budget the fuel duty escalator was abolished and

main fuel duty rate was cut by 1p / litre. • A major tax giveaway, estimated to cost the Government £1,900

million in 2011/12. Who benefits?

Figures: Impact of change in fuel duty, by household composition and type, on weekly cash payments: gains from 1p cut in duty and combined gains from cut in duty and abolition of fuel duty escalator.

• Single female pensioners and lone mothers benefit the least

-£1.00

-£0.80

-£0.60

-£0.40

-£0.20

£0.00Couple hh Single man hh Single woman hh

Pensioner hh Working-age hh w/ children Working-age hh w/o children

-£1.00

-£0.80

-£0.60

-£0.40

-£0.20

£0.00Couple hh Single man hh Single woman hh

Pensioner hh Working-age hh w/ children Working-age hh w/o children

The Importance of Gender Budgeting

• Gender budgeting essential for establishing a clear picture of the gendered impact of public expenditure and raising public money.

• Gender budgeting can promote gender equality and more efficient economic decision making.

• Evidence that gender budgeting can lead to more equitable policy outcomes.

The Importance of Gender Budgeting

• UK example: what can happen when a Government pursues austerity policies without gender budgeting.

• Harsh impact on women, particularly lone parents and single female pensioners.

• MPs’ and WBG analysis essential for holding government to account and providing evidence for other gender equality advocates.

Some References• Bellamy (2002) ‘Gender Budgeting’ Council of Europe. • Costa, Sawer and Sharp (2012) ‘Women Acting for Women’

International Feminist Journal of Politics • Elson (1998) ‘Integrating Gender Issues into National Budgetary

Policies and Procedures’ Journal of International Development.• Elson (2004) ‘Engendering Government Budgets in the Context of

Globalization’ International Feminist Journal of Politics.• Himmelweit (2002) ‘Making Visible the Hidden Economy’ Feminist

Economics. • IPU (2004) ‘Parliament, the Budget and Gender’ http://

www.ipu.org/PDF/publications/budget_en.pdf• WBG (2005) ‘Women’s Budget Group response to the Hansard

Society Project on Financial Scrutiny’ wbg.org.uk/documents/Hansard_financialscrutinyproject_response09.05.pdf