Gender Budgeting; Janet G. Stotsky; IMF Working Paper 06/232; October 1, 2006

WP/06/232

Gender Budgeting

Janet G. Stotsky

IMF Working Paper

Fiscal Affairs Department

Gender Budgeting

Prepared by Janet G. Stotsky

∗

Authorized for distribution by Jesús Seade

October 2006

Abstract

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.

The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent

those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are

published to elicit comments and to further debate.

Women are disadvantaged relative to men, according to key economic, social, and political

measures of equality, but in many areas, such as education, differences are narrowing. The

concept of externalities underlies the arguments for including gender considerations in budget

programs and policies. Other arguments have a weaker economic basis but may be more

socially or politically compelling. The experience to date with “gender budgeting,” which

entails looking at gender issues comprehensively within the budget, has been mixed. To become

more useful, gender budgeting should be integrated into budget processes in a way that

generates tangible improvements in policy outcomes. The International Monetary Fund should

encourage fiscal authorities to take into account the external benefits of reducing gender

inequalities and to remove from fiscal legislation any arbitrary discrimination against women.

JEL Classification Numbers: H6, J16

Keywords: Gender budgeting, government budgets

Author

’s E-Mail Address: j[email protected]

∗

The author would like to thank Ben Clements, Peter Heller, Prachi Mishra, Enrique Palma, Tej Prakash, Dawn

Rehm, Jesús Seade, and Marijn Verhoeven for providing instructive comments and suggestions. Thanks also go to

Nadia Malikyar and Beulah David for ably assisting with the preparation of the document, Sandra Stotsky and Van

Wallach for their valuable editorial assistance, Assi WoldeMariam for her usual capable and generous assistance in

putting together the data, and the IMF for granting me study leave.

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Contents

Page

I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................3

II. Measuring Gender Inequalities and Gender Equity Indexes.................................................3

III. Gender Budgeting: Concepts and Framework...................................................................12

IV. Gender Budgeting: Experiences ........................................................................................24

V. Conclusions.........................................................................................................................30

References................................................................................................................................46

Tables

1. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 (summarized) .......................5

2. Gender Equity Indexes, 2002.................................................................................................9

Appendix Tables

3. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 ...........................................33

4. High Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002............................................40

5. Medium Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002......................................42

6. Low Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002 ............................................45

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I. INTRODUCTION

This study examines how public processes can contribute to improving women’s status.

“Gender budgeting,” which refers to the systematic examination of budget programs and

policies for their impact on women, has been tried in a range of countries in recent years.

Australia was the first country to formally incorporate gender budgeting into its budget

process by developing the concept of a “women’s budget” to address inequalities between

women and men. Government ministries and departments were required to provide an

analysis of the impact of the annual budget on women and girls, focusing mainly but not

exclusively on public expenditures.

Gender budgeting is sometimes seen as outside mainstream research on budgeting. This

study attempts to place it squarely within that mainstream and to show that gender budgeting

is just good budgeting—budgeting that properly accounts for the positive externalities that

are derived from improving women’s opportunities for health care, education, and

employment. Studies show that programs and policies designed to improve women’s

economic opportunities lead to higher rates of economic growth (Stotsky, 2006).

Section II presents and assesses evidence on the linkage between poverty and women’s lack

of opportunities for educational, social, and economic advancement, highlighting data on key

indicators of inequality, such as access to education and average longevity. Sections III and

IV examine critically the literature on gender budgeting, survey some experiences, and

suggest directions for moving forward with these initiatives. Section V concludes with

implications for the work of the International Monetary Fund.

Key findings include: (i) Measures of inequality in key economic, social, and political

indicators show that women are disadvantaged relative to men, but in many areas, such as

education, differences are narrowing; (ii) The concept of externalities underpins the

arguments for including gender considerations in budget policies. Other arguments have a

weaker economic basis but may be more socially or politically compelling; and (iii) The

experience to date with gender budgeting, which entails looking at gender issues

comprehensively within the budget, has been mixed, though some initiatives are thriving.

These conclusions have the important implications that to become more useful as a budgeting

tool, gender budgeting should be mixed into budget processes in a way that generates

tangible improvements in policymaking and policy outcomes. International Monetary Fund

surveillance and program work should be geared toward ensuring that fiscal authorities take

into account the potential external benefits of reducing gender inequalities and enhancing the

status of women. Research in a number of areas can enhance the value of gender budgeting,

including measuring the differential incidence of fiscal policies by gender and the benefits of

reducing gender inequalities.

II. MEASURING GENDER INEQUALITIES AND GENDER EQUITY INDEXES

This section examines measures of differences between men and women in important

economic and social indicators and indicators of relative poverty. It also examines how

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gender differences can be aggregated and summarized by measures that take the form of

index numbers. These measures are used to compare gender inequality across countries.

Gender Inequalities in Key Economic and Social Indicators

Throughout the world, there continue to be differences in key economic and social indicators

between men and women. Table 1 presents data on average values of key indicators of

education and health, grouped by countries at a high, medium, or low level of human

development, classified on the basis of per capita income (a more detailed table is presented

in Appendix I).

In this table, gender inequalities are measured as the ratios of females to males for the

relevant variable. For instance, educational inequalities are measured as the ratio of female to

male primary school enrollment and secondary school enrollment. The data suggest that

educational inequalities exist, though they are concentrated in the poorest developing

countries. The ratio of females to males in school enrollment is essentially equalized in the

high and medium human development countries, while in low human development countries,

female enrollment continues to lag, and becomes more pronounced at the secondary school

level.

Health inequalities are measured as the ratio of female to male life expectancy. For biological

reasons, average female life expectancy is higher than male life expectancy, and this

difference exists in virtually all countries, but, as indicated in the table, the gap between

female and male life expectancy tends to narrow in the low human development countries.

Inequalities in health appear as excess mortality of female children and differences in life

expectancy that do not accord with biological norms. These inequalities lead to excess

mortality of females, a well-documented phenomenon referred to as the “missing women”

(Sen, 1989), where the number of “missing women” is an estimate of how many more

females would be alive, as predicted by biological models, if there were no gender

discrimination.

The World Bank (2001, pp. 3, 41-47) summarizes some trends over the past half century in

gender equality in developing countries. With the exception of a few countries, female

educational levels have improved considerably. In South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the

Middle East and North Africa, the gender gap in schooling fell substantially. Women’s life

expectancy increased by 15 to 20 years and the expected biological pattern in female and

male longevity has emerged in all developing regions, including for the first time in South

Asia.

Klasen (1994) estimates that for the world as a whole in the early 1990s, 90 million women were missing,

which he obtains by comparing actual sex ratios of populations with excess female mortality to an expected sex

ratio that would have prevailed in the absence of discrimination. Asian countries (principally China and India)

account for the major portion of these missing women.

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Table 1. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 (summarized)

School Enrollment, Primary School Enrollment, Secondary Life Expectancy at Birth, 2002

Ratio of Ratio of Ratio of

Male Female females Male Female females Male Female females

ratio Ratio To males ratio ratio to males Years years to males

Unweighted average

(in percent; unless noted)

High human development

96 96 1.00 84 87 1.03 73.35 79.44

1.08

Medium human

development 90 88 0.98 58 60 1.04 64.33 68.97 1.07

Low human development 63 55 0.86 21 15 0.73 44.69 46.52 1.04

Sources: See Appendix 1, Table 3

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Although more difficult to measure with simple summary measures, differences also exist

between men and women in access to productive assets, such as land and credit. In many

countries, women’s rights to land ownership are vested in men. Gender differences also are

present in labor markets. Occupational segregation is a pervasive feature of labor markets,

limiting the jobs that women can perform, leading to their underrepresentation in better jobs

and overrepresentation in worse jobs, including in the informal sector. Women also perform

the bulk of unpaid labor throughout the world, including developed countries. Gender

differences exist in rights under the law and as a result of cultural norms. Women are

generally underrepresented in the political sphere (World Bank, 2001, pp 51-58).

Women’s labor force participation has been rising across the world in recent decades, so that

women’s employment constitutes an important and increasing share of aggregate labor

supply. Using International Labor Organization (ILO) data, Standing (1999) shows that

during 1975–95, women’s labor force participation increased in the vast majority of

developing countries, with similar trends observed in developed countries. In contrast, during

this period, men’s participation decreased in the majority of developing and developed

countries. Thus for this period, total labor force participation increased but increased female

labor more than substituted for decreased male labor.

Occupational segregation and wage differences between men and women continue to

characterize most labor markets. In labor markets in developing countries, the female share

of non-agricultural employment has risen, even though women still comprise a minority of

such employment. In rapidly industrializing countries, the share of women is higher, while in

lower income countries, barriers to formal employment for women remain strong. Women’s

average wages also remain significantly lower than men’s average wages. Standing presents

data that suggest that these differences have narrowed somewhat, especially in Western

Europe, though cross-country comparisons of wage data are fraught with difficulty. The

greatest gaps between the average wages of men and women are in the newly industrializing

countries, especially Southeast Asia.

Gender Inequalities in Poverty Incidence

Although there are disparities between men and women in key indicators, poverty should not

be seen as a phenomenon limited or even primarily found among women. Male and female

poverty remains pervasive in the world. Chen and Ravallion (2004) estimate that over the

period 1981–2001, the proportion of the world’s population living below one dollar a day,

the most frequently used standard for international comparisons, declined from 33 percent to

18 percent and in absolute terms fell by 390 million people. Their estimates suggest that there

has been less progress in reducing the proportion of people living on less than two dollars

day, which still constitute about half the world’s population. In this period, Sub-Saharan

Africa overtook East Asia as the region of the world with the highest incidence of extreme

poverty, reflecting in large measure the decline in poverty in China as a result of sustained

economic growth.

Men and women’s unequal ability to develop their human capital and gain access to

resources and have a say in governance should imply differences in poverty rates by gender

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as well. It is widely believed that female poverty is more pervasive than male poverty,

although the evidence on this is mixed and incomplete. It is difficult to measure the

difference between male and female poverty because the most commonly used measure of

welfare is household consumption and this is typically collected on the basis of the

household, not the individual. Some studies have surmounted this problem by comparing

only male- and female-headed households, but these households may not be entirely

representative and are generally a heterogeneous group in any society. An alternative

approach is to compare indicators of poverty, such as education, health and nutritional status,

work opportunities, and time use.

Summarizing the literature that uses survey data, and that compares female and male poverty,

Lipton and Ravallion (1995) conclude that despite a lack of data on intra-household

distribution, the available studies suggest that female poverty is not greater than male poverty

in households which have a low level of consumption, nor are female-headed households

more likely to be poor. They do note, however, that women work longer than men to achieve

the same level of living because of the burden of market and domestic labor, and this is

especially pronounced for poor women. And there is evidence that except for the very poor,

women participate more in market work the lower their income and that as women

participate more in such work, men do not assume a substantial share of women’s domestic

work. They also find that women face a lower chance of independent escape from poverty, in

part because of domestic commitments and in part because of discrimination in education

and job assignments.

Lipton and Ravallion’s results contrast, however, with those of some other studies. Buvinic

and Gupta (1997) find in their review of studies comparing income and poverty levels of

female and male headed households that the majority of such studies conclude that female-

headed households are overrepresented among the poor. In a recent study using data from a

cross-section of developing countries, Quisumbing, Haddad, and Pena (2001) compare rates

of poverty for males and females and for male-and female-headed households to assess

whether women and female-headed households contribute disproportionately to poverty.

They use data from 10 developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

They calculate income and expenditure based poverty measures to investigate the sensitivity

of these results to different ways of measuring income and the poverty line. They find that

poverty is higher for female-headed households and females, but in well under half of the

countries they examine. The contribution of female-headed households to aggregate poverty

is less than that of females, owing to their low share of the population. Overall, the evidence

thus suggests that female poverty is greater than male poverty, but this result remains

inconclusive.

Gender Equity Indexes

The measurement of gender inequalities and trends over time is essential to fostering good

policy making. The main sources of data are census surveys, the System of National

Accounts, and sample surveys of the population. Time use studies are a particularly

important part of household survey data. Hedman, Perucci, and Sundstrom (1996) and Beck

(1999) provide useful guides to the compilation of gender-sensitive statistics. Key areas for

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the collection of gender-sensitive indicators include: statistics on population or demographic

characteristics; workforce characteristics; education and health indicators; access to

productive resources and credit, and legal and political rights, and to social insurance and

other fiscal support programs.

Using gender-disaggregated data, the development of measures of gender inequality are

important because they give shape to the data, can be used as a guide to public policies, and

provide a means to measure progress. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

constructs a general index that attempts to capture cross-country differences in levels of

human development. This index, which is termed the Human Development Index (HDI),

measures the change in broad indicators of well-being (UNDP, 1995). In contrast to some

measures that focus only on income as a measure of economic well-being, the HDI also

examines measures of education and health status. These non-income measures add more

fullness to the assessment of well-being, and al though the specific methodology of

construction of the index is not without drawbacks, the HDI has achieved broad acceptance

(Bardhan and Klasen, 1999). The HDI consists of three equally weighted components to

come up with an aggregate score for each country: income at purchasing power parity, adult

literacy and years of schooling, and life expectancy. The first component provides a proxy

for the level of welfare. The second provides a proxy for measures of human capital, and the

third for measures of health status. By design, the value of the HDI ranges from 0 to 1, where

1 indicates the highest level of well-being. The disparity between the HDI and other income-

based measures of progress suggest the importance at looking at several dimensions of well-

being in constructing a summary measure.

In 1995, the UNDP began presenting two indicators of well-being that focus on gender for

the purpose of measuring the extent of gender inequalities and changes over time (UNDP,

1995). The derivation of these indexes is premised on the theoretical notion developed in

Anand and Sen (1995) that, ceteris paribus, societies have an aversion to gender inequality.

These indexes are constructed so that they also range in value for each country from 0 to 1,

where values closer to 1 indicate higher levels of women’s well-being and empowerment

relative to men.

The first index relates to economic equality and is termed the Gender Development Index

(GDI). The GDI uses the same, equally weighted components, as the HDI, but examines the

gaps between men and women on each of these components in relation to the maximum

possible achievement in that component, and applies a penalty to this gap (Bardhan and

Klasen, 1999). In the life expectancy component, it is assumed that women would outlive

men by an average of five years, given equal treatment. If female life expectancy exceeds

male life expectancy by less (or more) than five years, a gender gap is held to exist. The

range of possible life expectancies is 60 years and there is thus a maximum possible gender

gap of 60 years. In the literacy and school enrollment component of the index, women and

men are assumed to have the same potential achievement so that differences constitute a gap,

Anand and Sen (1995) develop the mathematical properties of the index and show how the parameter values

relate to society’s notion of welfare.

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with a maximum possible gap of 100 percent. In the income component, the estimated share

of earned income of males and females is compared to their population share, and the

differences in estimated shares divided by their population shares for males and females.

Thus the maximum gap in proportional income shares is two (if either males or females earn

100 percent of total income).

The difference between the GDI and HDI for a country reflects not only the magnitude of the

gender gap but also the penalty that applies to this gap. This penalty is calculated by

constructing the so-called equally distributed equivalent achievement (EDEA), which is

defined as the level of achievement that, if attained equally by women and men, would be

judged to be exactly as valuable socially as the actually observed achievement (Anand and

Sen, 1995). An example is the level of literacy that, if achieved equally by everyone, would

yield the same social valuation as one showing a particular gender gap. The formula depends

on a parameter, the aversion to inequality, for which a larger value implies a greater penalty

for gender gaps. If the aversion to inequality were zero, then the EDEA would be the

weighted mean of the male and female levels, which is equal to the average level of

achievement in the HDI. Any value of the parameter greater than zero leads to an EDEA

below the weighted mean. For the UNDP report, the value of this parameter was taken to be

2 for all three gender gaps.

The second index, which is constructed in a similar manner, relates to political equality and

is termed the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The GEM examines the ability to

participate in economic and political life. It uses indicators based on per capita income, the

share of jobs classified as professional and technical, and administrative and managerial,

going to women and men, and the share of parliamentary seats going to women and men.

Table 2 presents a summary of the average index values, along with the HDI (a more detailed

table is presented in Appendix I), where the countries are grouped by income level into high,

medium, and low human development categories.

Table 2. Gender Equity Indexes, 2002 (summarized)

Unweighted Average

(index value)

Human

Development

Index (HDI)

Gender-

Development

Index (GDI)

Gender

Empowerment

Measure

(GEM)

High human development 0.884 0.887 0.653

Medium human development 0.700 0.687 0.429

Low human development 0.415 0.407 0.270

Sources: See Appendix I, Table 4.

The table shows that the HDI is related to the level of human development. The high human

development countries have on average an index value that is roughly twice that of the low

human development countries. The high human development countries also have higher

values for the GDI and GEM, although as the disaggregate data show, even within this group

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of countries there is considerable variation. The Scandinavian countries generally score

highest in terms of gender equality, with regard to both economic and political equality for

reasons that appear to be both cultural and economic. Developing countries tend to have

greater gender inequalities, but within this group, there are also considerable differences. The

Middle Eastern, Sub-Saharan African, and South Asian countries score relatively low in both

economic and political dimensions of gender equality. Beck (1999) notes, for instance, that

some developing countries outperform some developed countries in gender equality in

political, economic and professional activities; and some countries have low GEM rankings

compared to their GDI ranking, so that they are achieving unequally in these two areas.

Lahiri and others (2002) evaluate the existing degree of gender inequality in India and

present an interesting application of these indexes. The study provides some broad indicators

of the status of women in India, showing the degree of disadvantage in education and health

indicators for Indian females. The GDI for India shows a considerable gender disparity,

though it has improved over time, rising from 0.401 in 1992 to 0.533 in 2001. Nevertheless,

it remains low. The GEM also shows the disadvantage of Indian women. Poverty measures

also show a higher rate of female poverty, despite the overall continuing pervasiveness of

poverty in India. One interesting feature in India is the considerable variation across states in

measures of gender disadvantage, highlighting a feature that within diverse countries, the

degree of disadvantage can be quite large relative to variation on a cross-country basis.

The use of the indexes is not without criticism. Beck notes that the choice of indicators for

gender equality and their weighting in the indexes are to some extent arbitrary. Bardhan and

Klasen also critique these indexes. Regarding the GDI, they observe that when the index is

disaggregated into its three components, the earned-income gap dominates the calculation of

the index, and gaps in longevity and education receive negligible weight. The component

reflecting gaps in education appears to be the least problematic, placing emphasis on gaps in

enrollments and achievements. The measure of life expectancy is flawed because it ignores

the importance of differences in mortality at a young age. The most serious conceptual

problem is with the earned income component and they suggest some alternative ways to

measure this component.

Finally, they argue that the uniform treatment of the three

components may not be appropriate in that it implies the same aversion to inequality for all

three gaps between men and women.

As a measure of welfare, they observe that the share of income earned by males and females does not reliably

measure the gender gaps in consumption or standards of living at the household level since income is shared

within the household and therefore a low share for females does not necessarily imply a low female share of

consumption, notwithstanding the influence of shares earned by males and females on spending within the

household. Also, it assumes that an equal share in earned income between men and women is desirable, which it

may not be if there is some economically advantageous division of labor within the household. Finally, earned

income excludes unremunerated work and reproductive work, which is substantial in most parts of the

developing world, and suggests these are not worthwhile forms of labor. They also point to problems with the

approximations used to measure male and female earned income, and the assumption implicit in the formulation

of the index that implies that every dollar of difference in earned income is the same, regardless of average

income level so that the penalty for a given gender gap is proportional to the income level of a country, unlike

in the HDI.

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To improve these indexes, Bardhan and Klasen suggest a number of changes. They propose

to re-weight the gaps and increase the weights for the life expectancy and education

measures. They also suggest either dropping the earned income measure or measuring it

differently to address its most severe statistical shortcomings. With regard to the GEM, they

suggest that the use of earned-income in this measure is less of a problem because it proxies

for women’s empowerment rather than welfare. But they note that this measure still has

several deficiencies. In many countries, parliaments are relatively powerless. And it focuses

excessively on representation at the national level and in the formal sectors rather than at the

local and grassroots level.

Several other studies have critiqued the UNDP’s indexes. Dijkstra and Hanmer (2000) assess

the GDI, arguing that a major problem with the index is that it conflates relative gender

equality with absolute levels of human development and thus does not measure cross-country

gender inequality. They also critique the measure of income used in the UNDP index as too

heavily reliant on urban data, which they feel tends to understate the differences in earnings

relative to the rural and informal sectors and the share of women in the economically active

population, which have opposing effects on the calculation of the relative earnings measure.

They also note that it ignores the importance of control over family income and that if

women have relatively little control, then their well-being is not accurately measured by

relative income share. Using the same broad indicators as the GDI, they construct an

alternative index, which they term a Relative Status of Women (RSW) index. This index

consists of the sum of the ratios of a female to male index for education, life expectancy, and

income rather than a weighted average of the levels of these indexes. They measure the

education and life expectancy the same as in the UNDP index. For the income indicator, they

use the ratio of the implicit rate of return of women to men’s labor. All components of the

index are weighted equally. A value less than 1 indicates that women are discriminated

against. The RSW index suggests a different set of rankings than the GDI, with the main

difference being that the most gender-equal countries tend not to be only the countries with

the highest per capita incomes. In fact, with their measure, some very poor countries,

including several in southern Africa, score much better on gender equality than with the GDI

measure.

Morrisson and Jutting (2005) also critique these measures. They share the concerns noted in

the other studies about the limitations of the measures, but in their view, these indexes also

suffer from their lack of attention to institutional frameworks. They examine the importance

of social institutions, access to resources, and level of development in determining the

economic role of women. They conclude that social institutions are the most important single

factor determining women’s participation in economic activities outside the household.

They do, however, note some qualifications to the RSW index. One deficiency is that gender equality appears

to increase if only because the male indicators are declining, a pyrrhic victory for gender equality. They suggest

that rather than constructing summary measures of inequality, a focus on identifying the most important

indicators of inequality and classifying these indicators according to causal links.

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Summary

To sum up, this section examines three topics: It shows that differences between men and

women in key economic and social indicators remain the norm in most countries, and

particularly in the developing world. It surveys studies looking at measures of household

poverty disaggregated into males and females. These studies show that poverty is declining

worldwide, but still remains pervasive, for both men and women. Although some evidence

suggests that the incidence of poverty is higher for women than men, this issue is

inconclusive, given the need to rely mainly on household data that does not distinguish men

from women in the household. It also presents data on indexes constructed from key

economic, social, and political indicators to measure trends gender inequality, which show

that gender inequality is a world wide phenomenon. However, the precise measurement of

the degree of inequality remains controversial, in view of the theoretical and practical

difficulties in constructing valid summary measures. Alternative frameworks suggest the

importance of looking at the causal links between various economic and social factors and

measures of inequality.

The measurement of inequality is a key motivation underlying the development of gender

budgeting, a tool for improving the government budget process to rectify this inequality. This

is the topic of the next section.

III. GENDER BUDGETING: CONCEPTS AND FRAMEWORK

Gender budgeting has gained prominence in recent years, and was given additional impetus

by the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, which called for

ensuring the integration of a gender perspective in budgetary policies and programs (Sarraf,

2003).

This section addresses several issues. It examines the rationale and provides an

economic context for gender budgeting. It looks at the application and experiences of key

countries that have adopted some type of gender budgeting, and highlights some experiences

that can be usefully applied elsewhere.

Elson (2002) observes that government budgets are not “gender-neutral” and that the

appearance of gender-neutrality is more accurately described as “gender blindness,” because

fiscal measures may have a different effect on women and men. Gender budgeting seeks to

mainstream gender analysis of issues within government policies; promote greater

accountability for the commitment of governments to gender equality; and influence budgets

and policies (Sharp and Broomhill, 2002). Gender budgeting is not intended to analyze only

programs that are specifically targeted to females or to produce a separate “women’s”

budget, but rather to examine the gender effects of all government programs and policies,

Gender budgeting initiatives have been supported by a number of multinational institutions, foremost among

these the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Community, the World Bank, and institutions of civil

society, including many women’s organizations. The Commonwealth Secretariat has taken a principal role in

advancing gender budgeting. Its publications serve as a reference to many of the main issues and experiences.

The Commonwealth Secretariat also sponsored some of the earliest pilot projects in gender budgeting in a

number of Commonwealth countries including Barbados, Fiji, St. Kitts and Nevis, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.

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their effects on resource allocation and outcomes, and how to improve them. It draws upon

the literature on the measurement of inequality in that it tries to improve the allocation of

resources within the government budget to reduce those inequalities with consequent benefits

to economic and social well-being.

Beyond these common goals, gender budgeting means something different in each of its

applications. Budlender (2002) summarizes the goals of a few of the prominent initiatives:

the Asia Foundation’s motivation in supporting this initiative in the Philippines is

summarized as follows: to promote a more efficient, equitable, and effective government

policy making; to promote accountability and transparency, and to minimize corruption in

government; to inform and enhance citizen participation and advocacy, especially for

women; to encourage citizens’ budget literacy; and to contribute to effective decentralization.

The South African initiative, in contrast, aimed to develop an alternative set of values and

principles for prioritizing the socioeconomic needs of poor women; to provide a tool to

monitor spending and empower the institutions of government to do so; to empower the

government to draw up gender sensitive budgets; and to empower civil society to engage in

discussion of issues from which they had been excluded. Both initiatives seek to benefit

women, but the first has a more general emphasis on good government and effective

decentralization, while the latter is more focused on empowering the government to benefit

poor women.

We next turn to the theoretical rationale and empirical basis for gender budgeting, before

surveying some recent initiatives for lessons to be learned from them.

Externalities as a Justification for Gender Budgeting

Although gender budgeting seems straightforward, in practice, integrating gender

considerations in an economically meaningful way in the budget process is a difficult

analytical task. A natural question to ask is what is missing in the typical budget process that

suggests a need for gender budgeting? Section I presented evidence on the continuing

disadvantages faced by women. Stotsky (2006) surveys evidence suggesting that reducing the

disadvantaged status of women can be linked to a higher rate of economic growth and greater

economic stability, which yields benefits that the private market, when left to itself, does not

fully take into account. In other words, raising the status of women produces positive

externalities and thus justifies public policies that do so.

Palmer (1995) observes that the

distribution of labor within the household, with women doing most of the work of

reproduction and care, produces a positive social externality that the market fails to take into

account and should be integrated into public policies, offering another dimension on this

issue.

Externalities (or spillovers) are costs and benefits resulting from economic activities (either consumption or

production) that are not taken into account by the market. Hence they cause economic distortions. Activities that

cause negative externalities are undertaken in excess and those that cause positive externalities are undertaken

insufficiently. Externalities are a main reason that justifies government intervention in the economy.

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The notion of externality is a flexible one, and although it is typically formulated in the

context of economic efficiency, where an externality reduces economic efficiency, this

notion can also encompass equity as well as efficiency considerations (Thurow, 1971). As a

consequence, there may be external benefits in moving society to a more fair distribution of

income or well-being, thereby justifying public intervention. In this context, even if

improving the status of women or reducing gender inequalities do not necessarily improve

economic growth but simply create a more fair society, there is a justification for public

intervention to encourage this process. The Millennium Development Goals implicitly

recognize this bidimensional aspect of women’s equality, which is seen in these goals as both

a means to aid the achievement of the economic goals as well as social equity. These goals

thus rely on an underlying externality concept that takes into account both equity and

efficiency considerations as objectives of public policies.

Government policies can be used to internalize externalities through various means including

the allocation of property rights, taxes, subsidies, and regulations. Each of these methods has

implications for the optimal design of fiscal policy. Governments can subsidize private

activities that raise the status of women or reduce gender inequalities, or they can provide

such services themselves, depending on the extent of the externality. A good example would

be spending on women’s health care or education. Government could subsidize private

provision or else provide such services themselves. Similarly, to internalize an externality,

government could tax harmful activities (for instance, by imposing a tax on parents who do

not give proper medical care to their children). By a sensible allocation of property rights or

regulation of existing rights, government can also intervene to internalize an externality. An

example would be in changing the laws and customs of many countries that do not afford

women the opportunity to own or retain possession of their own property. These weak

property rights diminish the incentive to invest productively in these assets and limit

economic development. The principle of government intervention to reduce externalities

underlies sound budgeting in an economic context and provides a strong case for

incorporating gender concerns through a gender budgeting exercise. The chief difficulty of a

practical nature lies in measuring that externality and choosing the appropriate and most

effective method of government intervention. It that sense, gender budgeting can be done as

an aggregate exercise, but also needs to be done in a disaggregated manner either with

regard to government programs or areas of law or regulation to be most fully useful.

Gender Budgeting in Practice

Theoretical concerns often seem like an abstraction in real world budgeting processes.

Government budgeting is a process that in practice generally consists of several main

elements. Starting at the macroeconomic level, the prospective budget is placed within the

appropriate macrofiscal framework of the economy, and generally targets some overall

balance as an objective. Various measures of the balance are used, depending on the

circumstances. These may include a primary balance, if sustainability concerns are important,

or a structural balance, to remove cyclical influences on the budget outcome. At the

microeconomic level of the budget, economic theory has much to say about optimal

budgeting, and specific policies may be adopted on the basis of good economic logic.

However, absent an economic crisis, there is usually considerable inertia built into

- 15 -

government budgets, and most revenues and expenditures change (relative to each other and

as a share of the economy) only marginally from one year to the next, unless specific policy

changes are adopted with the intention of making a more significant alteration in the structure

and/or importance of a revenue source or spending program.

To contribute usefully to this budgeting process, gender budgeting needs to address several

main issues, as outlined in Budlender, Sharp, and Allen (1998): who should be responsible

for the exercise and how should it be integrated into the budget? And what is the scope of

issues to be covered in the exercise? How should it be reported? This discussion addresses

these issues in turn.

Gender budgeting can be undertaken as a specific exercise of the government, separate from

its standard budgeting process, it can be fully integrated in a centralized way, perhaps by a

budget department in a ministry of finance, or it can be integrated piece by piece into the

deliberations of spending ministries and the ministry of finance for revenue issues. Many

governments have a ministry devoted to women and children’s development, as in India,

which might be a natural alternative to a ministry of finance to conduct a gender budgeting

exercise, though such ministries generally lack the clout of the ministry of finance. It may be

difficult to gain support for the concept of gender budgeting within a government because it

adds to work responsibilities and has to avoid being seen as another program simply designed

to respond to a special interest group. Sen (2000) notes the difficulty in getting ministries of

finance to participate in gender budgeting exercises. It may thus fare better when undertaken

in a more decentralized way, but with clear direction from the ministry of finance or budget

department. However, this may decentralization may weaken its overall message. There are

thus tradeoffs in considering how to integrate it within government. A gender budgeting

exercise could also be undertaken as an exercise outside of government and the analysis and

recommendations simply presented to government, but this runs the risk that the exercise

may not receive the support that is needed to put its recommendations into practice.

In terms of its scope, gender budgeting could be geared to the macrofiscal dimensions of the

budget (the deficit or spending levels) or it could focus more on the microeconomic

dimensions (the composition of spending or revenues, or the structure of government policies

or programs). In terms of its macrofiscal dimension, gender budgeting might have advice to

offer about the appropriate pace of fiscal adjustment or the appropriate scope for government

activity in the economy. Gender considerations might alter the desirable approach to

government stabilization policies, and in particular, where women might be

disproportionately affected by austerity measures, it might lead to a different composition or

pace of fiscal adjustment. Gender budgeting could address the consequences of economic

instability, including in the labor market or financial sector, and its potentially

disproportionate impact on women. Or if externalities resulting from education or health care

are pervasive, it could argue in favor of expanding the scope of government intervention in

these areas of the economy, with implications for aggregate public spending or tax policies.

In terms of its microeconomic dimensions, gender budgeting might have advice to offer

about the composition of spending or revenues. Most often, a gender budgeting exercise

would suggest different structures for spending programs or taxes. For instance, it would

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suggest greater spending on critical education and health programs or a reduced reliance on

fees for certain critical education or health services linked to an improvement in women’s or

girls’ well-being.

Finally, gender budgeting might have advice to offer with respect to the means of financing a

deficit, the use of public assets, or the division of responsibilities among different levels of

government. For instance, gender budgeting might imply as a consideration in the sale of

public assets, the need to avoid disproportionate unemployment among women workers by

either slowing the pace of privatization, building in some process to retrain workers or

otherwise providing them with a social safety net, or transferring some employment

conditions of the public sector to the private sector. Gender budgeting might imply devolving

spending or revenue responsibilities to a level of government which would be more

responsive to the needs of the population and thus is better able to address externalities in

establishing budget policies.

The reporting formats for a gender budgeting exercise would differ, depending in part on

who is involved in the process, but also on how the analysis or recommendations are to be

conveyed as a consequence of the exercise. These budgets may take the form of a report

issued around the time of the budget that discusses gender issues, such as fiscal reforms and

how they differentially effect men and women (as in the United Kingdom or Canada). They

may also take the form of an explicit measurement of the impact of government programs

and policies on women (as in a number of European countries). Some examples of gender

budgeting will be presented later.

The gender budgeting literature has developed a somewhat stylized approach, adapted from a

framework laid out by Elson. It has been applied in a number of recent gender budgeting

exercises. Drawing from descriptions in Budlender and Hewitt (2003) and Budlender and

Sharp (1998), it is summarized here. They suggest the following approach:

● Undertake a policy appraisal, to identify gender issues and resource allocations, and

how policies will affect existing inequalities.

● Evaluate the beneficiaries of policies, using survey and other techniques.

● Evaluate public expenditure incidence, using cost data and numbers of beneficiaries.

Similarly, evaluate tax incidence.

● Examine the impact of the budget on time use and the care (or reproductive

economy).

● Examine the medium term and how these considerations change the macroeconomic

framework and projections.

● Prepare a budget statement or means to disseminate the results.

- 17 -

This stylized approach suggests an important feature of gender budgeting: it is good

budgeting, augmented by greater attention to the importance of gender—its impact on the

productivity and the use of time, and the importance of reducing inequalities. It need not

follow one particular format but should be integrated into the budget process in the way that

makes it most likely to be effective as a guide to good policy.

Sharp (2003) suggests combining gender budgeting with other budget initiatives including

performance budgeting. Performance oriented budgeting attempts to make government

expenditure more effective by focusing on outputs and outcomes rather than just inputs to

better assess their effectiveness. This emphasis on outputs and outcomes is very much in

keeping with the spirit of gender budgeting.

The emphasis on a medium term is essential for gender budgeting to be truly meaningful, as

with other budget planning. A sensible approach to budgeting should link the annual budget

process to a medium term, but all too frequently, the medium term is neglected. However, to

gain the full value added of gender budgeting, it is necessary to place it in a medium term

context because so many of the measures to reduce gender inequalities bear fruit over the

medium term and thus any short term analysis is likely to understate the value of these

measures. For example, efforts to improve girls’ education would reduce fertility but would

have a significant effect over a period of time that extends through a woman’s childbearing

years. Similarly, the impact of programs to reduce illiteracy may only produce dramatic

effects over a generation as the newly literate are able to participate more fully and

productively in labor markets and in civic governance, and to transmit these values to their

children or communities. In contrast, a program to improve water quality might have more

dramatic immediate effects by reducing mortality, particularly of children.

One of the limitations of the gender budgeting literature is that it generally fails to spell out

the precise mechanism by which the rationalization of fiscal policies is to be undertaken to

achieve the gender budgeting goals. The economic rationale for gender budgeting does not

imply that equal spending or revenue (per capita or otherwise) is necessarily economically

ideal, but as discussed earlier, spending and revenue programs and policies should be geared

to addressing economic needs and government intervention is justified on the grounds of

externalities.

A number of recent studies provide an approach to evaluating the incidence of government

programs in a disaggregated fashion, which can be used to incorporate gender considerations,

and hence provide a guide to how spending or revenue policies should be altered to achieve

gender-related goals.

Public Expenditures

In most countries, governments have the primary responsibility for providing critical public

services such as education and health care, and for providing basic economic infrastructure

such as clean water and roads. The government also typically is responsible for the provision

of a social safety net for the poor, the elderly, and the unemployed. The scope and quality of

- 18 -

government provision of all these services varies widely depending on the ability of

government to finance them and the underlying support for their place in government.

Analytical Frameworks for Public Expenditures

Since public expenditures have been the main focus of gender budgeting, it is useful to

summarize the stylized analytical framework that is most often used. Sharp and Broomhill

(1990) provide a framework for classifying public expenditures, which was developed in the

Australian context, its first real application. They classify expenditures into three categories:

● Gender specific expenditures: These are expenditures that are specifically targeted to

groups of men, women, boys, or girls. For example, this would include programs to

promote men's health or to reduce violence against women.

● Expenditures that promote gender equality within the public service: These are

expenditures targeted to equalizing employment opportunities in the public sector.

For example, this would include programs that promote representation of women in

management and decision making across all occupational sectors, as well as those

promoting equitable pay and conditions of service.

● General or mainstream expenditures: This category comprises all other spending,

which they estimate encompasses about 99 per cent of government expenditures.

Although these programs may be general in nature, they may have differential effects

by gender.

As with the stylized approach to gender budgeting overall, this stylized approach to

classifying public expenditures offers a simple and workable breakdown, which could

presumably be derived from most government budget documents. But it does have a number

of limitations. For one, it confounds to some extent two separate areas of government

activity, spending in the budget and public employment practices, which is not necessarily

part of a budget process. Second, most spending falls within the last category, and thus

looking only at the first two, would encompass only a small part of government activity and

not provide a full picture of the gender-differentiated effects of government programs and

policies.

In a formal statistical sense, this disaggregation of the spending side does not adhere to any

formal statistical accounting treatment for government as might be presented by the

International Monetary Fund’s Government Finance Statistics or the United Nations’ System

of National Accounts. In the Government Finance Statistics and System of National

Accounts methodologies, government budgets are broken down into functional and economic

categorizations, where spending is disaggregated by administrative units or economic

categories. These three categories above do not neatly fit into either a functional or economic

classification and hence it would be difficult to compare meaningfully different government

budgets using the classification presented above. A useful way to organize the budget data

would be by one of these standard classification schemes and then to examine within each

category, the differential incidence of public expenditures by gender.

- 19 -

Measuring the Benefit Incidence of Public Expenditures

Assessing the incidence of public expenditures in a gender budgeting context requires

differentiating benefits by gender. In this vein, Glick, Saha, and Younger (2004) lay out a

framework derived from microeconomic principles for evaluating the benefits of public

spending with specific application to data disaggregated by gender. In their scheme, it is first

necessary to choose the unit of measurement for welfare, the most common unit being per

capita household expenditures. However, for the purpose of gender budgeting it is essential

to disaggregate by gender. Unfortunately, expenditure per capita is more practical and it may

be impossible to separate benefits for different members of a household. Second, it is

necessary to estimate the value of public subsidies. Unlike private goods, for which demand

is continuous and one can use standard marginal conditions to derive estimates of benefits,

many public services are non-excludable, such as national defense or public administration,

so it is impossible to value the benefits based on these standard tools alone. Even when

public services are excludable, such as education or health care, public services are often

provided with a heavy subsidy or free so that the recipient’s acceptance of the service

indicates only that the service is worth more to the recipient than the cost to the recipient, but

does not indicate the value of the subsidy. Demand for many public services is discrete (for

instance, a person will only attend primary school once). The marginal value of a discrete

service may be quite different than the price paid. In addition, since many public services are

rationed, the standard microeconomic conditions do not adhere, and there is no equality

between price and marginal benefit of a service.

As a result of these difficulties, benefit incidence for public services does not use price as a

measure of value, but instead usually relies on one of several methods. These include: the

government’s cost of provision, compensating (or equivalent) variations from estimated

demand functions, a simple binary (0/1) indicator of use, and contingent valuation.

The first approach is the most commonly used methodology. This approach, termed “benefit

incidence” analysis, uses the cost of providing public goods and services as a way to

approximate benefits.

In this approach, information on unit costs, usually obtained from the

government, is combined with information on the use of these services so that a particular

level of spending can be assigned to a group or household, depending on how finely the

analysis is done, and the subsidy from government is measured as a consequence. Demery

(2000) and Davoodi (2003) lay out practical approaches to conducting this analysis,

including ways to calculate unit subsidies, taking into account issues related to capturing the

full cost of provision and netting for cost recovery, and issues related to measurement of

welfare.

Although this framework is practical and straightforward, it does have some theoretical and

practical shortcomings. From a theoretical perspective, the subsidy does not correspond to

See Meerman (1979) and Selowsky (1979) for an early development of this approach. See Davoodi, et al

(2003) and Demery (2003) for recent applications of this approach.

- 20 -

the value of the benefit from this public expenditure, which is revealed by demand behavior.

Valuing it in a more theoretically rigorous framework would address the issue of quality

raised above. From a practical perspective, it is very difficult to collect the information

necessary to construct an accurate measure. The most significant data problems include a

lack of adequate disaggregation and misreporting or inaccurate reporting of actual

expenditures by government. In some countries, actual spending outcomes are not available

or are presented inaccurately. Relying on budget data may introduce a serious inaccuracy,

where budgets are not adhered or need to be altered because of cyclical considerations that

arise in the fiscal year. Thus in most situations, the “benefit incidence” framework may be

the only feasible one.

Following Aaron and McGuire (1970), a more theoretically satisfying way to measure

benefits, derived from microeconomic theory, estimates demand for services and then

calculates compensating (or equivalent) variations from which the measure of benefits is

derived.

This approach can be used even when demand is discrete and the full cost of

provision is not borne by the buyer, as long as households must pay some price to obtain the

good or serve, to trace out a demand curve (Gertler and Glewwe, 1990; Gertler and van der

Gaag, 1990). This approach is, however, very demanding relative to the first approach both

conceptually and in the data required and would not be feasible for most public officials.

A third approach relies on a binary variable to indicate whether the individual has received

the good or service or not. While simplifying the data requirements quite considerably, it has

the main drawback that it implies that all recipients receive the same amount of benefits,

while, in fact, there are usually systematic differences in the amount of benefits received. For

instance, poorer recipients generally receive less benefit from government spending than

wealthier recipients (Younger, 1999; Sahn and Younger, 2000).

A fourth approach uses contingent valuation, and relies on surveys that ask how much a good

or service is worth to someone. For pure public goods (that are nonrival and nonexcludable),

this is the only theoretically appealing approach. But from a practical perspective, surveys

containing such information are not generally available for developing countries.

As a practical matter, much of the literature focuses on estimating the distribution of specific

expenditures such as education and health, as discussed earlier, on the basis of government

cost or a binary indicator of receipt. Research of this nature can be used to measure

inequalities and then in combination with research on the growth effects of inequalities,

measure the aggregate welfare losses from inequalities stemming from the level of provision

of government goods and services. From this point, the budget can be assessed to determine

where useful reallocations of spending would lead to a reduction of inequalities and yield

economic benefits.

The compensating variation is the amount by which income would have to change to compensate an

individual for a change in an exogenous variable, such as price, to leave his/her utility (welfare) unchanged.

This is the correct measure of the value of the policy change to the individual. The equivalent variation is a

similar concept but based on the new utility level rather than the original utility level.

- 21 -

Public programs do not only have effects on the immediate beneficiary but may also have

significant indirect effects. Most households consist of more than one person and usually

people of both genders. This raises the issue of how to allocate the benefits of services

received by one member of a household to the other members of the household who may also

benefit, and may confound measures of benefit, disaggregated by gender. For instance,

programs to improve prenatal care would generally benefit both women and their children. It

would thus be inaccurate to say that only women benefit from such programs, though they

might be the main beneficiary. Here there is scope to apply the concepts discussed earlier in

which the neoclassical framework is applied more realistically to reflect the presence of

multiple members of the household, and preferences that differ over household members.

As noted earlier, time is not exogenous in the household decision. Public spending programs

influence the availability of certain critical goods, such as education and clean water, and

hence they affect the allocation of time within the household. It is thus critical to look beyond

the immediate impact of a government program to its indirect effects—on the allocation of

time, including unpaid labor required to produce a certain level of household welfare.

These examples point out the difficulties inherent in any type of benefit analysis that

presumes to be broken down by gender and suggests that unless issues such as externalities,

indirect effects on other family or community members, and time reallocation effects,

derived from the more general framework of welfare economics, any estimates of gender

breakdown should be regarded circumspectly. To avoid excessive complication, it may be

desirable to rely on the most straightforward measures while acknowledging their

incompleteness—for instance the number of children benefiting from an education, broken

down into girls and boys or users of health services, similarly broken down by gender. And

then it is possible to use this information to evaluate inequalities and how to address them.

Gender Inequalities, Poverty, and the Incidence of Public Spending

Several studies have examined the association of gender inequalities in public spending and

poverty. They find that although gender inequalities are evident for both rich and poor

households, these inequalities are greatest for the poor, particularly for investments in

education and health. In a comprehensive international comparison, Filmer (1999) analyzes

gender differences in school enrollment using data from 41 countries across the world in the

1990s. Ranking households by wealth, he finds that gender inequalities in school enrollment

rates tend to be greater for the poor than the rich. In no country were these inequalities

greater for the rich than the poor. He also finds similar patterns between the rich and poor for

mortality of children under five, where in contrast to access to schooling, females enjoy a

natural advantage. In about two-thirds of countries, the female advantage is smaller for the

poor than the rich.

Glick, Saha, and Younger (2004) also assess the distribution of public expenditures, focusing

on education and health services, water supply, and public employment, for nine countries in

different regions of the world, including a sample of transition economies, and countries in

Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. They break down

the data for each country by quintiles using per capita household expenditures as a measure

- 22 -

of welfare and by gender (hence there are 45 comparisons by gender for the nine countries).

With regard to education, a majority of their comparisons for primary education show a gap

in favor of boys, rising slightly over the second period of their observation. The largest gaps

are in Ghana, Pakistan, and Uganda. Most of the changes in gaps over the two periods benefit

girls. The results for secondary education are similar.

For public medical visits, the gender gap favors women in every country and virtually every

quintile in the sample of countries presented by Glick, Saha, and Younger (2004). These

results are stable over time. Since the results may be influenced by the differentially greater

need of women in childbearing years, they also examine the number of medical care visits for

people outside the childbearing years and find no gender gap. Public vaccinations also show

no gender gap. Public employment, in contrast, shows a significant gender gap, except in

Bulgaria. In addition, when tracked over time, public employment gaps show relatively little

reduction (and an increase in a few countries). For time spent collecting water, there is a

significant gender gap in both countries, Madagascar and Uganda, in the sample for which

data exist. An important finding is that for education and health care services that there is no

consistent correlation between gender gaps in these services and per capita expenditures. For

water collection, the gap moves in opposite directions for the two countries. Only for public

employment is the gap large and strongly correlated with per capita expenditures.

Demery and others (1995) use discrete choice modeling techniques to estimate the incidence

of education and health spending in Ghana, disaggregated by gender and income. They

combine estimates of the cost of service provision with information on household use of

services, from the Ghana Living Standards Surveys. They find marked gender inequalities in

education spending with girls receiving less than boys. Sahn and Younger (2000) examine

cumulative shares of benefits across the expenditure distribution for eight African countries.

They find that for primary education in only one country do concentration curves, reflecting

the aggregate benefits, differ significantly by gender, which implies that the degree of

inequality is relatively constant across the expenditure distribution rather than that there is no

gender inequality. With regard to health expenditures, Demery and others (1995) find for

outpatient services an even split between males and females and little variation across the

expenditure distribution. But for inpatient care, they find that there are substantial

differences, with females receiving less than half the total share in the lowest quintile and

more than half in the other quintiles.

To sum up, this research suggests that, in general, educational inequalities exist between boys

and girls and they are more pronounced at higher levels of education and for poorer families,

and in poorer countries. However, there is considerable variation across countries and certain

regions of the world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and

South Asia show the greatest inequalities. A simple rule of thumb suggests that encouraging

greater schooling of girls is beneficial where there are inequalities, and that the greatest

remaining problem is among low income households. Health inequalities exist in some areas

of health care, especially for poorer households and in poorer countries, but are less in

evidence for some components of health care, such as vaccinations. The trend is toward the

reduction of these inequalities, though progress has been uneven. The implications are not

substantively different from those for education, but suggest that the magnitude of the

- 23 -

problem is smaller. There continue to be significant inequalities in public employment and

time spent collecting water (which in many countries consumes a considerable share of

female time).

These results suggest that properly targeted and structured public spending can contribute to

reducing gender inequalities in these important areas, with beneficial effects on well-being

and economic growth overall. They highlight the importance of looking not only at gender

but also income class since the differences by gender seem to vary greatly for different

income classes.

Public Revenues

On the revenue side, the application of gender budgeting has been less well defined, but tax

incidence analysis can be conducted in principle the same way as expenditure incidence

analysis. Sahn and Younger (2003) discuss its application to indirect taxes, and reflect on

how such analysis can be used to examine gender disaggregated incidence of public

revenues. The implications for reducing gender inequalities is, however, less immediate than

for spending. Nevertheless, since indirect taxes affect the price of private goods and services,

and may therefore interact also with demand for public goods and services, a general enough

framework could establish the links between tax policies and gender inequalities.

The importance of extending models of the household to incorporate multiple individuals

with different preferences in the specific context of assessing tax policy is developed in Apps

and Rees (1999). There are many inherent gender biases—both explicit and implicit—in tax

systems (Stotsky, 1997, 2005; Barnett and Grown, 2004). For direct taxes, the explicit and

implicit dimensions are more clear cut, especially when the taxes apply to individuals, as is

most often the case. 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 (Feenberg and Rosen, 1995).

Indirect taxes may also contain gender biases, though explicit biases are less likely since the

tax is impersonalized. However, implicit biases exist in several forms. For instance, under

sales taxes, there may be differential application or rates applied to different commodities. If

taxes apply less heavily to necessities or products predominantly purchased by women, this

creates a certain implicit gender bias. Similarly for taxes on international trade, since these

taxes are also impersonal, rarely does one find explicit gender bias but there are also implicit

biases built into the definition of the base, the structure of tax rates, and other features of the

tax system (Goldman, 2000; Smith, 2000).

An interesting recent study examines the gender dimensions of the incidence of tariff

liberalization, using South African expenditure data (Daniels and Southern Africa Labour

and Development Research Unit, 2005). It evaluates the differential impact of tariff

- 24 -

reductions on male and female-headed households in South Africa, during 1995, 2000, and

2004. Using data on consumption by sex of household head, it shows that there were

statistically significant differences in the impact of tariff reductions. It finds that male-headed

households almost always bear a greater share of tariff incidence (mainly because of their

greater consumption of some highly taxed goods, such as alcohol) but that both male and

female-headed households across all expenditure quantiles other than the most wealthy bear a

greater share of the tariff burden relative to total expenditures. Finally, it finds that changes

in the incidence over the three-year panel period between the sexes mimicked the trends for

the population as a whole, but showed crucial differences at the bottom end of the

expenditure distribution.

There are many issues of interest in taxation, most of which have received little scrutiny. For

instance, what are the gender dimensions of changing the structure of taxes toward greater

reliance on domestic revenue sources? Often reductions in trade taxes are offset by increases

in indirect taxes. Despite the difficulties in assessing the gender impact of either of these two

types of taxes, they are unlikely to have the same incidence and thus this may involve some

distributional issues of relevance.

Gender issues figure prominently in considering the appropriate use and scope of user fees to

recover costs of providing government services or products. The use of fees for cost recovery

purposes has been advocated as a means to strengthen revenue systems and generate a more

efficient use of public services. However, their use has also been criticized for what are seen

as adverse equity effects, by reducing access to certain essential services such as primary

education and health care. The standard prescription to offer a viable social safety net for the

poorest to insulate them from the effect of changes in government fees or taxes is often

unrealistic. User fees can be looked at from this perspective as a source of explicit or implicit

gender bias, and like direct taxes, they can be personalized (different people are charged

different amounts). There are some examples of explicit gender bias in user fees. Nanda

(2002) examines the use of user fees in terms of its effect on women’s utilization of health

services, in Africa. She finds that these fees discourage use and recommends greater

collection of relevant gender-disaggregated data and assessment of these effects. Hillman and

Jenkner (2004) suggest, however, that school fees may even, at times, increase access to

schooling for poor children by augmenting the ability of the government to provide schools

and improve their quality, and the ability of parents to control the flow of finances to schools

rather than to public services that do not benefit their families.

IV. G

ENDER BUDGETING: EXPERIENCES

This section provides a brief review of experience with gender budgeting. Some form of

gender budgeting or initiatives have been tried in more than 40 countries worldwide, in most

cases at the national level, but in some cases, at subnational levels as well. Although the use

of gender budgeting in some form is widespread, the experiences have been rather varied.

Budlender and Hewitt (2002) provide the most comprehensive survey on recent gender

- 25 -

budgeting initiatives. Some additional information for this survey is drawn from European

sources.

In summarizing gender budgeting initiatives, Budlender and Hewitt (2002) observe that

gender budgeting takes many forms and is strongly influenced by the unique milieu of the

country. The initiative has been undertaken in all regions of the world. It can be undertaken

by government, in either the executive or legislative branches, or by civil society.

International organizations can play a supportive role. Gender budgeting seeks to inform and

change government policies and programs to better the status of women and reduce gender

disparities, and it also seeks to improve budget process in general by enhancing participation

and accountability. Most gender initiatives focus on the spending side of the budget.

However, there are examples where these initiatives have focused on the revenue side, such

as in the United Kingdom. Some initiatives are targeted at specific components of the

government budget, while others have a larger focus.

Australia

Australia was the first country to develop the concept of a “women’s” budget. Instituted in

1984 at the federal level, this exercise was, at one point, undertaken in each of Australia’s

territories and states as well, with varying degrees of success. The original exercise at the

federal level was developed within the government, where departments and agencies were

required to provide an analysis of the annual budget’s achievements in relation to women and

girls, to be included in a document circulated with the budget documents (Sawer, 2002).

Departments were expected to identify objectives and mechanisms to improve performance

in meeting the needs of women. From 1987 the program was called the women’s budget

statement and given more formal status within the budget process. Early on, the budget was

seen as playing an important role in educating the bureaucracy as to the differential impact of

mainstream government policies on women, even while direct allocations to improve the

status of women remained small. For example, it gave focus to job market segmentation and

the need to reorient labor market programs to benefit women more fully. It recognized the

role of women in the unpaid economy as caregivers. Another example is its role in focusing

attention on the nongender neutrality of the dependent spouse rebate, which was

overwhelmingly claimed by men and which created a disincentive to women’s workforce

participation. Another example is in focusing on the disproportionate effect industrial

restructuring had had on industries where women were dominant, such as textiles and

clothing.

The experience of continental Europe is drawn largely from European Union publications, Spanish sources,

and unpublished sources.

- 26 -

The South Australian budget, initiated in 1985, provided a statement of women’s

disadvantage and a context for understanding that even apparently neutral policies may have

a disparate impact across genders. It also brought in an international dimension. It influenced

the budgeting process by bringing into focus the need to evaluate activities in terms of their

outcomes for women, for instance, by improving their employment. It also tracked

implementation of government policy on the appointment of women to higher level position

within government. Victoria pursued a similar approach but chose not to submit the

women’s budget with the regular budget. This exercise served the important purpose of

highlighting the need to disaggregate the effect of mainstream programs on women, rather

than simply focusing on women’s programs. It also stimulated international efforts.

Eventually, however, this initiative suffered, at both the federal and state levels. By 2000,

this exercise was confined to the Northern Territory, and was mainly an activity report.

Overall, it appeared that the women’s budget had not been sufficiently influential of policy to

justify the work required to produce it. This discouraging result was attributed in part to the

absence of effective civil society participation in the initiative and also political changes that

resulted in governments less predisposed to be sympathetic to gender budgeting objectives.

Some components of the process were, however, integrated elsewhere in the budget process,

in particular through the development of a women’s statistics unit in the Australian Bureau of

Statistics, in place of the gender equality indicators published in the women’s budget

statement (this unit did not survive subsequent budget cuts). It was also replaced through the

inclusion of gender reporting in program statements provided annually by departments to

parliament and integration of gender equity criteria into program targets. Some jurisdictions

introduced annual audits of government programs assessing performance against election

commitments to women. Gender auditing remained in place in some states and territories, but

without the formal ties to the budget or scope of analysis relative to the budget as originally

intended.

South Africa

A second initiative was initiated in 1995 in South Africa, motivated in part by changes in the

post-apartheid South African constitution that emphasized equality. The Women’s Budget

Initiative was a joint project of parliament and several nongovernmental organizations, with

the goal of looking at the gender implications of departmental budgets. South Africa served

as the first pilot for the Commonwealth Secretariat initiative on gender budgeting. The South

African initiative was perceived to have raised awareness of the issues. Tangible outcomes

included the development of training materials that are accessible to a broad cross-section of

the population, and a series of Women’s Budget Documents, which contain studies on

various gender-related issues, such as taxation and spending programs, and provide useful

elaboration of issues raised elsewhere, particularly on the revenue side, where relatively little

work has been done. As in Australia, the initiative did not become institutionalized, which

might be attributed in part to the lack of an effective advocate for it within government.

Nevertheless, some of the training and research materials provide a valuable source of

inspiration for like-minded work.

- 27 -

European Union

In the European Union, gender equality has taken a front burner status. With the Amsterdam

Treaty, a two-pronged approach was adopted that combines gender mainstreaming in all

Community policies with the introduction of specific measures to improve women’s status.

As far back as 1994, however, a key objective of the Structural Funds was to equalize

opportunities for men and women. The most recently adopted instruments for achieving

gender equality within the European Union include the Framework Strategy on Gender

Equality (2001–2005) and annual gender equality work programs and the Structural Funds.

The Framework is designed to coordinate activities and programs on a sectoral basis to

improve coherence, for example, by developing reliable indicators and a system for

monitoring, evaluating, and publicizing the results. The strategy identifies five areas for

promoting gender equality: the economy, linked to the employment strategy of the Structural

funds as well as mainstreaming more generally; participation and representation; social

rights; civil life; and changes in role and stereotypes. The quantitative objectives of the

Lisbon agenda are to increase female workforce participation to 60 percent by 2010 and to

ensure that preschool education is available to 90 percent of children between the age of

three and mandatory school age and to at least 33 percent of children under the age of three.

Nordic countries

The Nordic countries have achieved the greatest gender equality (Schmitz, 2005). They have

also forged ahead with gender budgeting in practice. The Nordic countries are characterized

by high labor force participation of women and an increase in men’s participation in the care

of children, mainly due to societal attitudes encouraging this and also the availability of paid

parental leave for women and men. Day care facilities are available to all children at an

affordable cost.

There are pilot projects in each Nordic country which will focus on gender analysis of

government programs, with an eye to developing a gender perspective on resource allocation

and integrating gender equality as an objective in the national budget. In Finland, Norway,

and Sweden, the budget will contain an assessment of the distribution of financial resources

between men and women. In Denmark, this analysis will be undertaken with regard to elderly

care, and in Iceland, with regard to disability payments. All the countries are attempting to

improve the collection of gender disaggregated statistics.

The Swedish government has committed itself to integrate gender into the budgetary process.

Starting in 2003, it has conducted three pilot projects in the transport, regional development,

and social sectors. The goal is to undertake this analysis in all policy areas and to define

objectives for each area and outcome indicators. The overall objective is to equalize for men

and women in Sweden “opportunities, rights and responsibilities in all areas of life.” The

specific goals are: to achieve an equal distribution of power and influence; the same

REX/192-CESE 128/2005, Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on Beijing+10:

progress in gender equality, Brussels, February 9, 2005.

- 28 -

opportunities for economic independence; equal conditions and opportunities in employment;

equal access to education and training as well as to opportunities to develop personal

interests and talents; shared responsibility for children and domestic chores; and freedom

from gender related violence.

A National Action Plan for Gender Equality was presented to parliament in June 2003. A

plan for implementing gender mainstreaming was adopted in April 2004 for years

2004–2009. Each ministry will be expected to develop performance measures and external

evaluations will be undertaken every second year. Implementation measures will include:

appointment of strategically placed gender equality coordinators; establishing an

organization for coordination in all ministries; undertaking extensive training for the Gender

Equality Unit; undertaking training for gender coordinators; establishing a program of

continuous training and support for all officials involved in gender-related work; and

presenting the results with performance measures to parliament in 2006.

Spain

In Spain, this initiative has been undertaken at both the central and provincial levels, which

in Spain have a relatively large degree of autonomy in spending and receive most revenues

from the central level through sharing agreements. At the central level, law 30/2003

establishes that all projects and rules of the government should include a report on the gender

impact of the measures undertaken. Spain has heretofore been required to report to the

European Union on mainstreaming of equal opportunities for women and men as a condition

of receiving structural funds. The expectation is that law 30/2003 will be implemented by

requiring each spending ministry to assess its programs and explain the impact of these

programs on gender equality. This initiative comes against a backdrop of increased interest in

social reform. The Ministry of Labor Women’s Institute is currently developing a guide for

spending ministries to create these gender reports. It will recommend that these reports

describe the situation of women with quantitative data that are available and examine the

impact of the law on the status of women. Laws will be assessed for their gender impact

following implementation. In addition, each year, in the annual budget, the main document,

the “Presupuesto de Gastos/Beneficios Fiscales,” shows what gender-related goals, such as

the integration of women in the labor markets, social benefits, and so on, the government

hopes to achieve through spending and tax incentives.

At the regional level, three regions have undertaken initiatives in this area. The most

extensive exercise has been undertaken in the autonomous community of Andalucia, where

law 18/2003 mandates gender analysis in all laws of the province. So far, this law has been

institutionalized in the regional government through several specific measures. First, a

committee, composed of representatives from different parts of the regional government, and

consisting of an equal number of male and female representatives, was formed. Second, data

collection on a gender disaggregated basis was made mandatory and is presented each year in

a document that accompanies the budget along with an assessment of progress made in

reducing gender inequalities in important areas, such as education. The government has

shown real commitment to the process as well as institutionalizing the process so that it

would survive a change of government. Although the process is still in its beginning stages,

- 29 -

the example of Andalucia perhaps represents one of the more successful initiatives and might

be a useful guide for subsequent such efforts.

In the Basque region, the Basque Country’s Women’s Office, Emakunde, in partnership with

a private company, Infopolis, put together a collection of materials on gender budgeting.

However, there are no official initiatives of the government, itself, other than support for the

Women’s Office. In the region of Catalunya, a law mandating gender analysis appears to

have produced little practical result so far.

India

Gender budgeting is a concept that was introduced in the Budget Speech for 2000-01 and the

initiative so far has some similar elements to those described above. Lahiri and others (2002)

report on gender budgeting initiatives in India in a report of the National Institute of Public

Finance and Policy, commissioned by the government. To provide the analytical basis for its

recommendations, this study constructs an econometric model to link spending on public

education and health to the GDI, showing the positive effect of such spending on this

indicator of gender inequality. This study also then disaggregates spending on the federal

level (Union) budget. It using a modified Sharp and Broomhill approach to categorize budget

expenditure, dividing it into expenditure specifically targeted for women, expenditure which

have what they term pro-women allocations, and mainstream expenditure. Expenditure

targeted to women consists of four main types: that specifically targeted to women such as

protective services, social services that can empower women, self employment, and

regulatory-like maternity schemes. These are overall a small percentage of the budget—about

1 percent. There are also expenditures that are pro-women, though they are not specifically

targeted to women, and are derived from budget expenditure by a formula, developed in the

study. Such spending includes certain programs related to poverty alleviation and water

supply. These expenditures also constitute a relatively small portion of the total. For the third

category of mainstream expenditures, this study uses a gender disaggregated public

expenditure benefit incidence analysis by constructing unit costs for different public services,

and looking at utilization by gender. For education, they find a disadvantage for girls relative

to boys. Altogether, this report represents an interesting effort at focusing on the gender-

differentiated effects of budgetary spending and although the linkages of such spending to

gender disparity measures and economic growth and welfare are only treated in brief, it

provides a framework for such analyses to support sensible budget making.

Mexico

Mexico provides another variation on gender budgeting initiatives (Hofbauer, 2002). The

initiative began in 1993, motivated by an interest in population control policies for poor

women living in developing countries. An initial collaboration turned into the Foro Nacional

de Mujeres y Politicas de Poblacion (Foro), a network linking together almost 80 women’s

groups throughout Mexico. In 1999, a group of researchers of the Foro began an assessment

of trends in federal programs and spending regarding reproductive health, and found that

there had been a downward trend. This research highlighted the inequities faced by different

groups of women regarding their health requirements. Simultaneously a series of public

- 30 -

finance workshops for women leaders was launched by Equidad de Genero, Ciudadania,

Trabajo Y Familia (Equidad). Pressure was building to integrate a gender perspective into

public policy making. Federal and state committees on gender and equity were established to

provide an opportunity for women to express their views and influence public policies. A

gender equity provision was incorporated into anti-poverty programs. In 2000, Equidad and

Fundar, a think tank involved in budget research to promote democracy, started a joint

project on gender-sensitive budget analysis, operating at the federal level and in four states. It

began by training and collaborating with Foro and others. It linked the technical skills of the

research center with broad advocacy. At first, it focused on 21 government-funded anti-

poverty programs and examined how these programs addressed the difficulties faced by

women and whether women’s needs were covered and their capacities built. At the state

level, the effort focused on establishing a more comprehensive anti-poverty program,

including better access to health, education, and nutrition. These efforts continued,

especially to increase understanding of the gender aspect of health issues for public officials

and civil society. A handbook was developed which emphasized these points and was

distributed to government officials. The strength of the initiative is perceived to lie in its

combination of solid academic analysis and advocacy based on this research basis, thus

emphasizing the importance developed in the earlier discussion of further developing the

analytical basis for gender budgeting and placing it within an appropriate economic context,

and then taking it forward. But it also points to the challenges in translating those academic

exercises into practical results.

V. CONCLUSIONS

The Way Forward for Gender Budgeting

Gender budgeting seeks to integrate gender considerations more fully into the government

budget process, but it is not one uniform approach. Instead it is applied differently from one

place to another. It can be a separate document presented with the budget or it can be

integrated into departmental processes and program analysis. Externalities offer a strong

justification for government intervention in the private economy. Gender inequalities may

generate externalities and changes in public policies that take into account ways to reduce

these externalities and can contribute to improving the efficiency and equity of public

policies. Most often, gender budgeting is not couched in an explicitly theoretical framework,

in part because of the difficulties in measuring the externalities from government activities,

including spending programs.

The gender budgeting literature has developed tools for integrating gender budgeting into the

standard budget process. These tools rely on simplifications of the theoretical framework, but

suggest the importance of evaluating the incidence of government expenditures and revenues.

Gender budgeting should not, however, ignore the important next step, which is to evaluate

the effect of the budget on well-being, including by considering the use of time as an

important component contributing to household welfare.

- 31 -

Since the benefits of reducing gender inequalities may manifest themselves only over the

medium term, it is essential to place gender budgeting in the medium term context of the

budget, and to ensure that the budget is supported by an appropriate macroeconomic

framework and projections. For international organizations, gender considerations have a role

to play in focusing on the differential effect of government policies and programs on gender

disparities. They may certainly have an influence on the scope and timing of fiscal

adjustment needed to restore macroeconomic stability, as well as on the type of social safety

nets put in place to cushion the most vulnerable against the harshest effects of fiscal austerity.

The experience with gender budgeting suggests that even initiatives adopted with enthusiasm

may fall by the wayside if the process appears to produce more added work than added value.

Several important lessons can be learned from the experience so far. Gender budgeting

should be incorporated into standard budget processes and fully institutionalized. It should

not be seen as something to be done in addition to the standard budget process, though

elements of it, such as an analysis of benefit or tax incidence, may require periodic special

efforts. It should address specific and identifiable goals, such as reducing the inequality in

educational attainment, that have clear benefits and that can be measured, even with

somewhat crude tools and data. It should draw upon civil society for support and assistance

in the more research-oriented aspects, and apply to subnational levels of government, where

relevant. It should be comprehensive and include considerations of all aspects of the budget,

not only spending, where it is most often applied. Gender budgeting should not as a rule set

specific goals for spending on women-related objectives, unless budgets are severely

constrained and such spending is well below what an unconstrained budget would otherwise

choose, since this tends to introduce inflexibilities and hence inefficiencies in the budget

process. Several existing models are producing useful results, including the work in some

parts of the European Union, most notably the Nordic countries and some provinces in Spain,

and many useful models can be drawn from past and ongoing experiences elsewhere, in both

developed and developing countries.

Implications

This survey has examined and critically assessed the literature on gender budgeting. Based

on measures of inequality in key economic, social, and political indicators, women continue

to be disadvantaged relative to men; but in many areas, such as education, differences are

narrowing. The concept of externalities underlies the arguments for including gender

considerations in budget policies. Other arguments have a weaker economic basis but may be

more socially or politically compelling. The experience with gender budgeting has been

mixed so far and much work remains to ensure that gender budgeting exercises are

productive and become institutionalized as a standard part of budgeting.

There are several implications of this research. First, to become more useful as a budgeting

tool, gender budgeting should be mixed into budget processes in a way that generates

tangible improvements in policymaking and policy outcomes. International Monetary Fund

surveillance, program, and technical assistance work should encourage fiscal authorities to

take into account the potential external benefits of reducing gender inequalities and to

removing arbitrary discrimination against women in fiscal legislation. Second, to enhance the

- 32 -

value of gender budgeting, additional research should focus measuring the differential

incidence of fiscal policies by gender and on the benefits of reducing gender inequalities.

- 33 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 3. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02

School Enrollment, Primary School Enrollment, Secondary Life Expectancy at Birth, 2002

Ratio of Ratio of Ratio of

Male Female females to Male Female females to Male Female females to

ratio ratio males Ratio ratio males years years Males

High human development

Norway 102 102 1.00 94 95 1.01 76.5 81.5 1.07

Sweden 102 102 1.00 98 99 1.01 77.7 82.1 1.06

Australia 95 96 1.01 87 90 1.03 76.4 82.2 1.08

Canada 100 100 1.00 98 98 1.00 76.2 82.4 1.08

Netherlands 101 100 0.99 90 90 1.00 76.0 80.7 1.06

Belgium 101 101 1.00 ... ... ... 75.4 81.8 1.08

Iceland 101 101 1.00 81 85 1.05 77.5 82.1 1.06

United States 92 93 1.01 85 85 1.00 74.7 80.1 1.07

Japan 101 101 1.00 100 101 1.01 78.1 85.2 1.09

Ireland 94 95 1.01 80 85 1.07 74.1 79.8 1.08

Switzerland 100 99 0.99 90 85 0.95 77.4 83.3 1.08

United Kingdom 101 101 1.00 93 95 1.02 75.0 80.1 1.07

Finland 100 100 1.00 93 95 1.02 74.6 81.6 1.09

Austria 91 91 1.01 89 88 0.99 76.0 81.9 1.08

Luxembourg 96 96 1.00 76 83 1.09 74.7 81.1 1.09

France 100 100 1.00 91 93 1.02 75.5 83.0 1.10

Denmark 99 99 1.00 88 91 1.03 74.7 79.2 1.06

New Zealand 99 98 0.99 91 93 1.02 76.0 80.9 1.06

Germany 82 84 1.02 88 88 1.00 75.2 81.2 1.08

Spain 105 104 0.99 92 96 1.04 74.8 82.0 1.10

Italy 100 100 1.00 84 85 1.01 75.0 81.9 1.09

Israel 101 101 1.00 88 89 1.01 76.7 80.7 1.05

Hong Kong, China (SAR) 98 98 1.00 71 72 1.02 77.5 82.6 1.07

Greece 95 95 1.00 84 86 1.03 75.4 80.8 1.07

Singapore ... ... ... ... ... 76.4 80.4 1.05

Portugal ... ... ... 83 89 1.08 72.8 79.4 1.09

Slovenia 94 93 0.99 95 97 1.02 72.2 79.8 1.11

Korea, Rep. of 101 101 1.00 89 89 1.00 70.5 77.5 1.10

Barbados 103 103 1.00 87 86 0.99 72.5 77.5 1.07

Cyprus 94 95 1.01 87 89 1.02 75.8 80.5 1.06

Malta 97 98 1.01 79 80 1.01 75.9 81.0 1.07

- 34 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 3. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 (cont.)

School Enrollment, Primary School Enrollment, Secondary Life Expectancy at Birth, 2002

Ratio of Ratio of Ratio of

Male Female females to Male Female females to Male Female females to

ratio ratio males ratio Ratio males years years males

High Human Development

Czech Republic 88 88 1.00 89 90 1.01 71.7 78.5 1.09

Brunei Darussalam ... ... ... … ... ... 74.3 79.1 1.06

Argentina 108 108 1.00 78 83 1.06 70.9 77.9 1.10

Seychelles 107 106 0.99 96 101 1.05 69.1 77.0 1.11

Estonia 99 97 0.98 90 95 1.06 65.0 76.5 1.18

Poland 98 98 1.00 90 93 1.03 69.8 77.9 1.12

Hungary 91 90 0.99 92 92 1.00 68.3 76.6 1.12

Saint Kitts & Nevis 98 107 1.09 96 116 1.21 68.8 74.0 1.08

Bahrain 90 91 1.01 77 86 1.12 70.8 75.9 1.07

Lithuania 98 97 0.99 91 92 1.01 67.7 77.9 1.15

Slovakia 86 88 1.02 86 87 1.01 69.4 77.4 1.12

Chile 89 88 0.99 74 76 1.03 73.3 79.4 1.08

Kuwait 85 84 0.99 75 79 1.05 74.9 79.0 1.05

Costa Rica 89 91 1.02 48 53 1.11 75.0 80.4 1.07

Uruguay 89 90 1.01 69 76 1.11 70.7 78.6 1.11

Qatar 96 94 0.98 76 80 1.06 74.6 75.3 1.01

Croatia 90 88 0.98 85 87 1.03 69.7 78.1 1.12

United Arab Emirates 83 80 0.97 71 74 1.05 74.0 76.8 1.04

Latvia 91 90 0.99 88 89 1.01 65.1 76.0 1.17

Bahamas 86 88 1.03 78 79 1.01 65.5 74.1 1.13

Cuba 96 95 0.99 83 84 1.01 74.8 78.8 1.05

Mexico 101 102 1.01 59 61 1.03 70.7 76.7 1.08

Trinidad and Tobago 94 94 1.00 67 69 1.03 70.4 74.5 1.06

Antigua & Barbuda ... ... ... ... ... ... 72.5 78.2 1.08

- 35 - APPENDIX TABLE

Table 3. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 (cont.)

School Enrollment, Primary School Enrollment, Secondary Life Expectancy at Birth, 2002

Ratio of Ratio of Ratio of

Male Female females to Male Female females to Male Female females to

ratio ratio males ratio ratio males Years years males

Medium human development

Bulgaria 93 92 0.98 87 85 0.98 68.5 75.3 1.10

Russian Federation ... ... ... ... ... ... 59.8 72.2 1.21

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya ... ... ... ... ... ... 69.9 74.9 1.07

Malaysia 95 95 1.00 72 73 1.01 70.4 75.3 1.07

Macedonia, TFYR 93 93 1.00 84 81 0.96 71.1 75.9 1.07

Panama 99 99 1.00 59 65 1.10 72.6 77.3 1.06

Belarus 94 93 0.98 76 79 1.04 62.5 74.2 1.19

Tonga

105 105 1.00 68 77 1.13 69.3 73.5 1.06

Mauritius 93 93 1.00 59 64 1.08 69.0 76.2 1.10

Albania 97 97 1.00 73 75 1.03 71.7 76.4 1.07

Bosnia and Herzegovina ... ... ... ... ... ... 71.0 76.9 1.08

Suriname 97 98 1.01 53 75 1.43 67.5 73.3 1.09

Venezuela 92 93 1.01 53 62 1.17 70.9 76.7 1.08

Romania 93 92 0.99 80 81 1.02 66.2 73.9 1.12

Ukraine 81 81 1.00 91 91 1.00 62.9 73.7 1.17

Saint Lucia 104 102 0.98 61 79 1.29 72.0 75.5 1.05

Brazil 95 97 1.02 69 74 1.08 64.7 72.6 1.12

Colombia 87 86 0.99 51 56 1.10 68.8 74.9 1.09

Oman 74 75 1.01 68 68 1.00 72.6 75.6 1.04

Samoa (Western) 95 94 0.99 58 65 1.12 66.5 72.5 1.09

Thailand 88 85 0.97 ... ... ... 67.0 71.5 1.07

Saudi Arabia 62 57 0.92 55 51 0.93 71.4 74.9 1.05

Kazakhstan 90 89 0.99 86 83 0.97 56.6 67.0 1.18

Jamaica 95 95 1.00 73 76 1.04 73.7 77.8 1.06

Lebanon 90 89 0.99 ... ... ... 69.0 72.6 1.05

Fiji 100 100 1.00 74 79 1.07 67.8 71.3 1.05

Armenia 85 84 0.99 83 86 1.04 71.3 78.5 1.10

- 36 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 3. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 (cont.)

School Enrollment, Primary School Enrollment, Secondary Life Expectancy at Birth, 2002

Ratio of Ratio of Ratio of

Male Female females to Male Female females to Male Female females to

ratio ratio males ratio ratio males Years years males

Medium human development

Philippines 92 94 1.02 52 62 1.20 67.9 71.7 1.06

Maldives 95 96 1.01 29 33 1.13 67.8 70.6 1.04

Peru 101 101 1.00 67 65 0.97 67.6 72.2 1.07

Turkmenistan ... ... ... ... ... ... 61.0 68.4 1.12

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 93 92 0.99 47 57 1.21 70.0 76.0 1.09

Turkey 91 85 0.93 ... ... ... 67.5 72.5 1.07

Paraguay 91 92 1.01 49 51 1.05 68.6 73.1 1.07

Jordan 91 92 1.01 79 81 1.03 70.4 73.6 1.05

Azerbaijan 81 79 0.98 76 75 0.99 61.8 68.8 1.11

Tunisia 98 97 0.99 67 69 1.04 70.8 74.6 1.05

Grenada 89 80 0.90 ... ... ... 69.8 76.3 1.09

China 92 93 1.01 ... ... ... 69.0 72.4 1.05

Dominica 92 90 0.98 82 87 1.06 74.5 78.8 1.06

Sri Lanka 105 105 1.00 ... ... ... 71.7 76.0 1.06

Georgia 91 91 1.00 70 72 1.03 69.3 77.6 1.12

Dominican Republic 99 95 0.96 35 47 1.34 64.4 70.1 1.09

Belize 96 96 1.00 59 63 1.07 72.7 75.6 1.04

Ecuador 101 102 1.01 49 50 1.02 69.0 71.9 1.04

Iran, Islamic Rep. of

80 78 0.98 ... ... ... 68.3 70.3 1.03

Occupied Palestinian Territories 94 95 1.01 78 83 1.06 70.5 75.1 1.07

El Salvador 89 89 1.00 46 47 1.02 67.2 73.2 1.09

Guyana 100 97 0.97 72 79 1.10 58.0 66.9 1.15

Cape Verde 101 100 0.99 52 54 1.04 66.3 72.0 1.09

Syrian Arab Republic 101 96 0.95 41 37 0.91 68.0 72.7 1.07

Uzbekistan ... ... ... ... ... ... 63.8 70.3 1.10

Algeria 97 94 0.97 61 64 1.06 69.4 72.1 1.04

Equatorial Guinea 92 78 0.85 33 19 0.58 49.9 53.5 1.07

Kyrgyzstan 92 88 0.96 ... ... ... 61.0 69.7 1.14

Indonesia 93 92 0.99 48 46 0.95 64.8 68.6 1.06

- 37 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 3. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 (cont.)

School Enrollment, Primary School Enrollment, Secondary Life Expectancy at Birth, 2002

Ratio of Ratio of Ratio of

Male Female females to Male Female females to Male Female females to

ratio ratio males ratio ratio males Years years males

Medium human development

Viet Nam 98 92 0.94 ... ... ... 67.3 72.2 1.07

Moldova, Rep. of 79 78 0.99 68 70 1.03 63.4 70.7 1.12

Bolivia 94 94 1.00 68 67 0.98 61.9 65.3 1.05

Honduras 86 88 1.02 ... ... ... 63.2 69.1 1.09

Tajikistan 107 102 0.95 86 72 0.84 63.7 69.6 1.09

Mongolia 86 88 1.03 66 78 1.19 63.9 67.1 1.05

Nicaragua 81 82 1.01 34 40 1.18 66.5 71.1 1.07

South Africa 89 90 1.01 58 65 1.11 45.5 47.5 1.04

Egypt 92 88 0.96 83 79 0.95 67.3 70.5 1.05

Guatemala 87 83 0.95 28 27 0.95 62.6 68.5 1.09

Gabon 79 78 0.99 ... ... ... 51.6 54.3 1.05

São Tomé and Principe 102 96 0.94 ... ... ... 63.2 68.5 1.08

Solomon Islands ... ... ... ... ... ... 67.9 70.7 1.04

Morocco 91 85 0.93 34 28 0.83 66.4 70.4 1.06

Namibia 77 81 1.06 32 44 1.36 41.7 41.3 0.99

India 92 76 0.83 ... ... ... 62.6 64.2 1.03

Botswana 80 83 1.04 52 59 1.15 38.3 37.9 0.99

Vanuatu 92 94 1.02 28 28 1.01 67.0 70.1 1.05

Cambodia 89 83 0.93 25 15 0.60 52.6 55.5 1.06

Ghana 62 59 0.96 35 30 0.87 54.3 55.6 1.02

Myanmar 82 82 1.00 36 34 0.94 54.7 59.8 1.09

Papua New Guinea 82 73 0.89 25 20 0.80 56.4 58.1 1.03

Bhutan ... ... ... ... ... ... 62.0 64.5 1.04

Lao People's Dem. Rep. 86 79 0.92 35 28 0.81 53.3 55.8 1.05

Comoros 60 50 0.84 ... ... ... 60.1 62.7 1.04

Swaziland 76 77 1.01 29 35 1.21 43.5 44.0 1.01

Bangladesh 86 88 1.02 42 46 1.10 61.5 62.7 1.02

Sudan 51 42 0.83 ... ... ... 57.0 59.8 1.05

Nepal 75 66 0.88 ... ... ... 60.1 59.6 0.99

Cameroon ... ... ... ... ... ... 47.5 49.4 1.04

- 38 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 3. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 (cont.)

School Enrollment, Primary School Enrollment, Secondary Life Expectancy at Birth, 2002

Ratio of Ratio of Ratio of

Male Female females to Male Female females to Male Female females to

ratio ratio males ratio ratio males Years years males

Low human development

Pakistan ... ... ... ... ... 62.6 65.1 1.04

Togo 102 86 0.84 36 17 0.48 48.6 50.7 1.04

Congo ... ... ... ... ... ... 49.6 53.7 1.08

Lesotho 82 88 1.08 17 27 1.56 36.6 39.2 1.07

Uganda ... ... ... 15 13 0.86 42.8 43.5 1.02

Zimbabwe 82 83 1.01 42 38 0.91 39.4 38.5 0.98

Kenya 70 71 1.02 25 24 0.97 45.2 45.9 1.02

Yemen 71 47 0.66 46 21 0.46 56.8 58.1 1.02

Madagascar 68 69 1.01 12 12 1.03 54.0 57.0 1.06

Nigeria ... ... ... ... ... ... 44.8 45.9 1.02

Mauritania 68 65 0.96 16 13 0.83 49.4 52.6 1.06

Haiti ... ... ... ... ... ... 49.9 54.3 1.09

Djibouti 39 30 0.77 21 13 0.63 43.5 43.6 1.00

Gambia 76 70 0.92 32 24 0.75 51.8 55.0 1.06

Eritrea 46 39 0.86 24 18 0.74 49.9 52.3 1.05

Senegal 61 54 0.89 ... ... ... 50.6 54.1 1.07

Timor-Leste ... ... ... ... ... ...

Rwanda 83 85 1.03 ... ... ... 39.4 40.3 1.02

Guinea 69 54 0.78 18 7 0.38 45.7 46.7 1.02

Benin 84 58 0.69 27 13 0.48 51.0 54.5 1.07

Tanzania, U. Rep. of 54 54 1.00 ... ... ... 42.6 43.6 1.02

Côte d'Ivoire 72 53 0.74 ... ... ... 44.8 45.7 1.02

Zambia 67 66 0.99 21 18 0.85 36.6 37.3 1.02

Malawi 81 81 1.00 32 26 0.81 37.1 38.0 1.02

Angola 33 28 0.86 ... ... ... 45.1 48.3 1.07

Chad 70 47 0.67 13 4 0.31 46.9 49.9 1.06

Congo, Dem. Rep. of the 36 34 0.95 16 9 0.58 44.7 46.0 1.03

- 39 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 3. Gender Inequalities in Education and Health Status, 2001/02 (concluded)

School Enrollment, Primary 1/ School Enrollment, Secondary 1/ Life Expectancy at Birth, 2002

Ratio of Ratio of Ratio of

Male Female females to Male Female females to Male Female females to

ratio ratio males ratio ratio males Years years males

Low human development

Central African Republic ... ... ... ... ... ... 41.5 42.7 1.03

Ethiopia 52 41 0.79 18 11 .61 41.3 43.0 1.04

Mozambique 64 56 0.88 13 9 0.69 40.2 42.0 1.04

Guinea-Bissau 54 38 0.71 ... ... ... 44.0 46.9 1.07

Burundi 59 48 0.82 9 7 0.75 41.5 41.9 1.01

Mali 45 32 0.72 ... ... ... 39.9 41.9 1.05

Burkina Faso 41 29 0.71 9 6 0.65 42.3 43.5 1.03

Niger 41 28 0.68 6 4 0.66 45.9 46.5 1.01

Sierra Leone ... ... ... ... ... ... 36.1 38.7 1.07

Unweighted average

High human development 96 96 1.00 84 87 1.03 73.35 79.44 1.08

Medium human development 90 88 0.98 58 60 1.04 64.33 68.97 1.07

Low human development 63 55 0.86 21 15 0.73 44.69 46.52 1.04

1/ Male and female ratios are net enrollment as a percent of eligible population.

Sources: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook (WEO); World Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI); UN, Human Development

Report 2004, Table 26; and International Monetary Fund staff calculations.

- 40 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 4. High Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002

Human

Gender-Related Gender

Development

Development Empowerment

Index (HDI)

Index (GDI) Measure (GEM)

Norway 0.956 0.955 0.908

Sweden 0.946 0.946 0.854

Australia 0.946 0.945 0.806

Canada 0.943 0.941 0.787

Netherlands 0.942 0.938 0.817

Belgium 0.942 0.938 0.808

Iceland 0.941 0.938 0.816

United States 0.939 0.936 0.769

Japan 0.938 0.932 0.531

Ireland 0.936 0.929 0.71

Switzerland 0.936 0.932 0.771

United Kingdom 0.936 0.934 0.698

Finland 0.935 0.933 0.82

Austria 0.934 0.924 0.77

Luxembourg 0.933 0.926 ...

France 0.932 0.929 ...

Denmark 0.932 0.931 0.847

New Zealand 0.926 0.924 0.772

Germany 0.925 0.921 0.804

Spain 0.922 0.916 0.716

Italy 0.920 0.914 0.583

Israel 0.908 0.906 0.614

Hong Kong, China (SAR) 0.903 0.898 ...

Greece 0.902 0.894 0.523

Singapore 0.902 0.884 0.648

Portugal 0.897 0.894 0.644

Slovenia 0.895 0.892 0.584

Korea, Rep. of 0.888 0.882 0.377

Barbados 0.888 0.884 0.634

Cyprus 0.883 0.875 0.497

Malta 0.875 0.866 0.48

Czech Republic 0.868 0.865 0.586

Brunei Darussalam 0.867 .. ...

Argentina 0.853 0.841 0.645

Seychelles 0.853 ... ...

Estonia 0.853 0.852 0.592

Poland 0.850 0.848 0.606

Hungary 0.848 0.847 0.529

Saint Kitts and Nevis 0.844 ... ...

- 41 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 4. High Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002 (concluded)

Human

Gender-Related Gender

Development

Development Empowerment

Index (HDI)

Index (GDI) Measure (GEM)

Bahrain 0.843 0.832 0.395

Lithuania 0.842 0.841 0.508

Slovakia 0.842 0.840 0.607

Chile 0.839 0.830 0.46

Kuwait 0.838 0.827 ...

Costa Rica 0.834 0.823 0.664

Uruguay 0.833 0.829 0.511

Qatar 0.833 ... ...

Croatia 0.830 0.827 0.56

United Arab Emirates 0.824 ... ...

Latvia 0.823 0.823 0.591

Bahamas 0.815 0.813 0.699

Cuba 0.809 ... ...

Mexico 0.802 0.792 0.563

Trinidad and Tobago 0.801 0.795 0.644

Antigua and Barbuda 0.800 ... ...

Unweighted average 0.884 0.887 0.653

Source: UN Human Development Report 2004, Tables 1, 24, and 25.

- 42 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 5. Medium Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002

Human

Gender-Related Gender

Development

Development Empowerment

Index (HDI)

Index (GDI) Measure (GEM)

Bulgaria 0.796 0.795 ...

Russian Federation 0.795 0.794 0.467

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 0.794 ... ...

Malaysia 0.793 0.786 0.519

Macedonia, TFYR 0.793 ... 0.517

Panama 0.791 0.785 0.486

Belarus 0.79 0.789 ...

Tonga 0.787 ... ...

Mauritius 0.785 0.775 ...

Albania 0.781 0.778 ...

Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.781 ... ...

Suriname 0.78 ... ...

Venezuela 0.778 0.77 0.444

Romania 0.778 0.775 0.465

Ukraine 0.777 0.773 0.411

Saint Lucia 0.777 ... ...

Brazil 0.775 0.768 ...

Colombia 0.773 0.77 0.498

Oman 0.77 0.747 ...

Samoa (Western) 0.769 ... ...

Thailand 0.768 0.766 0.461

Saudi Arabia 0.768 0.739 0.207

Kazakhstan 0.766 0.761 ...

Jamaica 0.764 0.762 ...

Lebanon 0.758 0.755 ...

Fiji 0.758 0.747 0.335

Armenia 0.754 0.752 ...

Philippines 0.753 0.751 0.542

Maldives 0.752 ... ...

Peru 0.752 0.736 0.524

Turkmenistan 0.752 0.748 ...

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 0.751 ... ...

Turkey 0.751 0.746 0.29

Paraguay 0.751 0.736 0.417

Jordan 0.75 0.734 ...

Azerbaijan 0.746 ... ...

Tunisia 0.745 0.734 ...

Grenada 0.745 ... ...

China 0.745 0.741 ...

Dominica 0.743 ... ...

- 43 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 5. Medium Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002 (cont.)

Human

Gender-Related Gender

Development

Development Empowerment

Index (HDI)

Index (GDI) Measure (GEM)

Sri Lanka 0.74 0.738 0.276

Georgia 0.739 ... 0.387

Dominican Republic 0.738 0.728 0.527

Belize 0.737 0.718 0.455

Ecuador 0.735 0.721 0.49

Iran, Islamic Rep. of 0.732 0.713 0.313

Occupied Palestinian Territories 0.726 ... ...

El Salvador 0.72 0.709 0.448

Guyana 0.719 0.715 ...

Cape Verde 0.717 0.709 ...

Syrian Arab Republic 0.71 0.689 ...

Uzbekistan 0.709 0.705 ...

Algeria 0.704 0.688 ...

Equatorial Guinea 0.703 0.691 ...

Kyrgyzstan 0.701 ... ...

Indonesia 0.692 0.685 ...

Viet Nam 0.691 0.689 ...

Moldova, Rep. of 0.681 0.678 0.469

Bolivia 0.681 0.674 0.524

Honduras 0.672 0.662 0.355

Tajikistan 0.671 0.668 ...

Mongolia 0.668 0.664 0.429

Nicaragua 0.667 0.66 ...

South Africa 0.666 0.661 ...

Egypt 0.653 0.634 0.266

Guatemala 0.649 0.635 ...

Gabon 0.648 ... ...

São Tomé and Principe 0.645 ... ...

Solomon Islands 0.624 ... ...

Morocco 0.62 0.604 ...

Namibia 0.607 0.602 0.572

India 0.595 0.572 ...

Botswana 0.589 0.581 0.562

Vanuatu 0.57 ... ...

Cambodia 0.568 0.557 0.364

Ghana 0.568 0.564 ...

Myanmar 0.551 ... ...

Papua New Guinea 0.542 0.536 ...

Bhutan 0.536 ... ...

- 44 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 5. Medium Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002 (concluded)

Human Gender-Related Gender

Development

Development Empowerment

Index (HDI)

Index (GDI) Measure (GEM)

Comoros 0.53 0.51 ...

Swaziland 0.519 0.505 0.487

Bangladesh 0.509 0.499 0.218

Sudan 0.505 0.485 ...

Nepal 0.504 0.484 ...

Cameroon 0.501 0.491 ...

Unweighted average 0.700 0.687 0.429

Source: UN Human Development Report 2004, Tables 1, 24; and 25.

- 45 - APPENDIX TABLES

Table 6. Low Human Development and Gender Equity Indexes, 2002

Human

Gender-Related Gender

Development

Development Empowerment

Index (HDI)

Index (GDI) Measure (GEM)

Pakistan 0.497 0.471 0.416

Togo 0.495 0.477 ...

Congo 0.494 0.488 ...

Lesotho 0.493 0.483 ...

Uganda 0.493 0.487 ...

Zimbabwe 0.491 0.482 ...

Kenya 0.488 0.486 ...

Yemen 0.482 0.436 0.123

Madagascar 0.469 0.462 ...

Nigeria 0.466 0.458 ...

Mauritania 0.465 0.456 ...

Haiti 0.463 0.458 ...

Djibouti 0.454 ... ...

Gambia 0.452 0.446 ...

Eritrea 0.439 0.431 ...

Senegal 0.437 0.429 ...

Timor-Leste 0.436 ... ...

Rwanda 0.431 0.423 ...

Guinea 0.425 ... ...

Benin 0.421 0.406 ...

Tanzania, U. Rep. of 0.407 0.401 ...

Côte d'Ivoire 0.399 0.379 ...

Zambia 0.389 0.375 ...

Malawi 0.388 0.374 ...

Angola 0.381 ... ...

Chad 0.379 0.368 ...

Congo, Dem. Rep. of the 0.365 0.355 ...

Central African Republic 0.361 0.345 ...

Ethiopia 0.359 0.346 ...

Mozambique 0.354 0.339 ...

Guinea-Bissau 0.35 0.329 ...

Burundi 0.339 0.337 ...

Mali 0.326 0.309 ...

Burkina Faso 0.302 0.291 ...

Niger 0.292 0.278 ...

Sierra Leone 0.273 ... ...

Unweighted average 0.415 0.407 0.270

Source: UN Human Development Report 2004, Tables 1, 24; and 25.

- 46 -

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