Gender Budget Initiative: Background Papers

At face value, budgets appear to be gender-neutral policy instruments. In reality, they are gender-blind because they ignore the different roles, responsibilities and capabilities of men and women, hence have a different impact on both groups. They fail to recognise that women's contribution to the economy is underestimated due to incomplete statistics, women are over- represented in the unpaid 'domestic' economy, and that women tend to be disadvantaged in the distribution of resources. There has, however, been growing acknowledgement of the way in which gender inequality can limit the outcomes of macroeconomic policy, such as women's vulnerability under economic reform, and their inability to invest in human resource development. Yet, gender remains neglected in the budgetary domain, despite it arguably being the most important macroeconomic policy. These two background papers - which fed into the Commonwealth Gender Budget Initiative - present a conceptual framework for approaching a gender-sensitive budget, and policy options for integrating gender issues into budgetary processes in the context of economic reform.