In Canada, the current federal government has put forth for the first time a “gender equality budget.” But, what is gender budgeting? It is a way for governments and non-governmental organizations to promote gender equality using administrative and fiscal policy by assessing the differing needs people of different genders, designing policies to remedy them and subsequently testing to see if the policies had their intended impacts.
Gender budgeting should not just be about equally distributing government spending to men and women.
To implement policy changes, gender budgeting analysis takes into account a range of identity factors such as age, education, language, ethnic backgrounds, geography, culture and income. By placing an emphasis on these intersectional factors, gender budgeting can create and inform better decision making that can improve conditions for women as well as other marginalized peoples.
This explainer is based on a workshop on gender budgeting hosted by the Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) in 2016.
View the full research brief here.