Download The role of women in the “European Employment Strategy”. Gender

GENDER BUDGETING IN PRACTICE
Prague
November 8, 2007
What can we expect from gender budgeting?
Annamaria Simonazzi
Fondazione G. Brodolini
and
University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Equality, efficiency, and transparency
The integration of a gender perspective into macroeconomic
policy may have both an equality and an efficiency dimension
Macroeconomic policy can affect gender equality
e.g. Choice between tax cuts or increase in services
Gender inequality in turn can affect macroeconomic outcomes
e.g. Lack of services affects women’s participation to the labour
market, the size of the market economy, the tax-base, the
sustainability of service provision, and long run sustainability
2
Transparency and correct calculation of social
costs
What does not enter (explicitly) in the budget
The budget appears as a gender-neutral policy instrument
It ignores the different socially determined roles, responsibilities
and capabilities of women and men: for instance the fact that
there is an unpaid economy in which women do most of the work
of caring
e.g. Monetary transfers versus service provision (hidden costs)
A gender-aware budget statement
National, regional and local levels of government have to strive for the
effective achievement of equality between women and men in their
budgetary policies.
3
The Italian experience
In Italy sperimentation has been exclusively at the local level
(Rosselli)
Driving forces: awareness raising groups (women experts);
Increasing demand from civil society groups ; Political will;
Availability of funding for pilot projects (EU); Committed
individuals inside public administration
New political coalitions may provide the political will for
•Experimenting with the GB at the national level
•Move on from pilot projects at the local level to
implementation in regular administrative procedures and
coordination of the various local experiences
4
The national budget
Two possible approaches:
• Address specific items (revenues and expenditure) to
evaluate their gender impact
Problems: complex interactions between different measures cutting
across different ministries (e.g.: extension of women’s retirement age
for pensions benefits)
•
Address the overall design of budget policy
Problems of resources and political will
Problem: How to change the budget stance, while keeping
within the budget constraint
The change in the composition of the various items can be obtained either
•
by switching items of receipts and expenditure (e.g. save in women’s
pensions and use the proceeds to increase public services), or
•
by posting both higher expenditures and receipts, while keeping the
budget balanced.
5
Methodology
Steps for a gender appraisal of the budget:
•
needs assessment (including need for time)
Democratization of budget policies: open up budget process to
civil society to assess needs: transparency and participation
•
analysis of the impact of expenditure and revenue
(assessment of beneficiaries by gender)
Involvement of outside government actors to analyse possible impact
(researchers and experts)
Auditing: evaluation of achievements
•
impact of budgets on unpaid work and time use:
assessment of “invisible costs”
(some changes in the organisation of services are actually a “transfer
6
of costs” rather than savings)
Some instances from the Italian Financial Law
We shall consider two policy objectives:
• to increase the female activity rate (Lisbon strategy)
• to tackle the problem of the ageing of population
The increase in the female activity rate
•
To respond to emancipation demand: Social and cultural factors:
change in family roles (equity)
• Support to growth (efficiency)
How can the budget (fiscal policy) help in the achievement of
this goal?
Two types of interventions:
• measures that work more directly on the target variable,
• and measures that act indirectly on the context (see point 2
7
on care)
Direct measures: incentives
Three measures have been suggested:
1. reduce taxation on new hiring of women
(this measure has been already included in past year financial law
for newly hired female workers in obj. 1 regions, and it has been
maintained in this year financial law)
2. reduce taxation on dual earners families’ income
3. a tax credit for working mothers
(introduced in this year financial law).
The first measure works on the demand for labour: by reducing the
taxation on female labour, it should make the hiring of female workers
cheaper, thus increasing demand;
Measures under 2 and 3 should encourage the supply of labour: by
reducing the taxation of the second income, or by providing a tax
credit to working mothers, they make paid work more profitable, thus
providing an incentive to increase labour supply.
8
Coeteris paribus assumptions
Is the analysis of the direct impact of these measures enough in order to
say that they make women unequivocally better?
No. In fact, even if these measures are successful in increasing the number
of women working in the market, other things equal, their burden in
terms of total amount of hours of work (paid and unpaid) will increase
(what we called the “invisible costs”).
Thus, in order to evaluate the global effect on women’s well-being we need
to consider the interaction of these various aspects.
That is, in order to evaluate the gender impact of any measure affecting
female paid work, we need to take into account also what happens in
the field of unpaid work (paid work and re-conciliation).
This leads us to the other aspect of the budget, which is related to
expenditures and provision of services, that is, more directly related to
the unpaid work for care (still mostly female).
9
Taxes versus services
Women may not be unequivocally in favour of tax cuts, if this requires
expenditure cuts to keep a balanced budget
Let me give one more example taken from the current debate on the
Italian financial law
Italy is ageing rapidly and this poses two urgent problems:
•
the long term sustainability of the pension system
•
the long term sustainability of the Italian model of long-term care for
the elderly – or more generally for severely dependent people – which
is still fundamentally based on the family
Increasing awareness of the urgency of these problems has prompted a
proposal to increase the retirement age of women (at present fixed at
57) and raised a debate on the need for a national fund for
dependency.
10
The issues from a gender perspective
•
•
•
What are the consequences on women’s well-being of a
gradual extension of the retirement age for women from
57 to 62?
Should the savings be used to finance a national fund for
dependency (as against their use to ensure the financial
sustainability of the pension system)?
How should this fund be spent in order to reduce the
burden of reconciling paid work and care?
The extension of the retirement age will impact severely on
the provision of (unpaid) care, which is now performed to
a large extent by retired women. Thus keeping women
longer in the labour market might interfere with the
supply of care, or put an extra-burden on women.
11
Monetary transfers or provision of services?
Should the fund be used to provide more public services for care, we
could achieve a double goal:
•
to partly relieve women from their care chores, thus providing a
stimulus to enter paid work, and
•
to increase the demand for care labour on the regular market, that is
the demand for female work, thus supporting female employment
(the “Nordic” welfare model).
(Unconditional) monetary transfers, viceversa, could simply perpetuate
the care regime based on the family (and hence on women), while
providing them with care allowances (that family could choose to
spend on the black market for care).
12
Monetary transfers or provision of services?
The choice is a political one, but it must be supported by a
gender-conscious analysis of its possible impacts on gender
equity and, as argued at the beginning, on overall
efficiency.
Since care, as most public services, is organised and provided
at the local level, the evaluation of these measure from a
gender perspective implies extending and coordinating the
analysis at the local (regional, municipal) levels.
13
Conclusions
•
•
•
•
•
•
Need to make clear the gender implications of the budget
Democratization of budget policies: open up budget
process to civil society to define the objectives, in a gender
equality perspective
Involvement of government and experts to assess the likely
impact
Make sure that analysis translates into policy changes and
results
Auditing: to evaluate the results
Ensure the interplay and coordination of different political
levels: European, national, regional and municipal levels
By making explicit the total costs to society of policy decisions
the integration of gender in the budget appraisal can thus
14
respond to equity and efficiency criteria.