Conference Agenda

Almost 30 years on from the Beijing Platform for Action and the commitment of global and local institutions to gender mainstreaming, gender analysis and the gendered lived effects of economic policy making continue to be largely absent from economic policy making. Gender budgeting has gained some ground, but despite its global spread, its stickiness as an approach to feminist policy making has been limited. Furthermore, despite the exhortations that women be engaged with directly and supported to participate in policymaking, women - and particularly racialized, low income, and disabled women – continue to be held at some distance from economic policy making. This applies to women’s knowledge of economic policy and the key instruments and processes through which decisions affecting their everyday lives are impacted as well as to the opportunities for engagement with policy makers. There have been multiple approaches to build women’s economic knowledge, and to consult with women, specifically and in generalized government consultations, on individual policies and even elements of budgetary processes. Nevertheless, enduring gaps remain in relation to women’s participation and the extent to which policy analysis and decisions reflect women’s experiences and in effect continue to reproduce unequal and disadvantages outcomes. Drawing on new data from a local (Glasgow, Scotland) project with women on low incomes in multiple low paid employment, and national survey data from the Scottish Women’s Budget Group and findings from other civil society organisations, this paper sets out the experiences of women in the current cost of living ‘crisis’, the scandal of impoverishment as a consequence of government policies, and the clearly stated ‘demands’ of women in relation to economic policy. The paper considers the formal efforts to engage and consult with women on economic policy matters, examining the gender competence of the policy makers charged with formulating policy and the processes currently in play. By examining the gaps between women’s voices and experiences, and institutional gendered knowledge, the paper outlines the early stages of a new project, adopting refreshed feminist strategies to engage with critical actors, drawing on feminist theorising on participation and deliberative practices, opportunities for collaboration and comparative international learning through emerging theoretical and practical approaches to ‘legislative theatre’, bringing together policy makers – officials and elected politicians – in direct engagement with women empowered to act out their presentation of the necessary actions for women’s economic stability and autonomy.

Gender responsive budgeting is a term that has arisen and is understood through practice, rather than the application of an set of epistemological theory or defined methodology. Practitioners working with governmental organisations and NGOs require pragmatism in order to achieve gains in women’s equality and through this pragmatism an understanding of the term has grown through a community of practice.

The challenge facing feminist economists is to spread the learning from this practical experiential community into the wider feminist discourse and activism. Equipping women’s organisations with the tools and vocabulary to engage in social and political debate enables a stronger, united response to the challenges faced by global upheaval, worsening inequality and the climate emergency.

Affecting socio-political change requires a multitude of agents, feminist change is achieved through an interplay of actors within an ecosystem of volunteers, activists, media, academics and politicians. Gendered concepts and terminology need to be mainstreamed in public, academic and political discourse in order to become a force for change. This poses a significant challenge to defining the methods of Gender Responsive Budgeting to provide a shared vocabulary. While it may be appropriate for academically trained actors to engage with epistemological and theoretical concepts, grassroots activists have limited time and agency to engage with complex data sets and complex ideas. These actors require a more off-the-peg methodology that can be readily applied to their situation. The gains in enabling this type of activist agent have the potential to be important. Not only are their voices essential to mainstreaming gender within the public debate, they often have access to audiences that political and academic leaders struggle to engage with. It is not sufficient to enable change, the change must come through a deep understanding of the intersectional, social and cultural obstacles and difficulties. This is a requirement not only for social justice, but in order to avoid unpredictable or ineffective policy interventions.

In this paper we will be exploring the strands that form a gendered approach to budgeting and fiscal justice. We will also consider the feminist ecosystem and the requirements of each of the agents for support and training as well as the ways in which they can affect the changes we need.

The important discourse that became more evident especially after the Global financial crisis was the macro-economic and social protection policy responses to the crisis which were largely expansionary and followed up by the financial austerity measures to control deficits and consolidate debt. Resultantly, the overly restrictive macroeconomic targets supported by International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have a real economic, political, and human-rights cost which is disproportionately shouldered by women. One impact of these austerity measures is seen through the spectrum of social cash transfer programs which provide a cushion to the shocks of livelihoods for women and can have gendered implications. The design of the cash transfer mechanism, payment procedures, conditions, and transfer value has the tendency to absorb the economic and political shocks shaped by the policy changes. In this regard, with gender-sensitive budgeting, the potential gender biases could be assessed through the way cash transfers are designed. It can help in readjusting the priorities and recognize the need to allow for adequate budgetary resources for the expansion of social protection thus adding to the productive space of the economy. This paper analyses the gendered cost of austerity imposed on women through the social cash transfers mechanism and seeks to address the following questions: (1) To what extent can gender-sensitive budgeting help design cash transfers which can reduce gender inequalities in crises exacerbated by the austerity measures? (2) What evidence of gender inequality reduction from cash transfers can be found in Brazil and Pakistan? It can be hypothesized that the gendered nature of austerity is exacerbating gender inequalities through indirect losses in income, gender gaps in employment, gender-based violence, maternal mortality, an increase in unpaid care work, and time poverty. Secondly, Gender-sensitive budgeting can highlight gender-oriented concerns through the design elements of cash transfers where targeting, transfer value, and conditionalities in the preexisting structure of social cash transfers could create fragmentation and discriminatory access to social rights. Incorporating the empirical evidence from the case study method and the Gender-sensitive assessment using the gender-aware policy appraisal, the following results were drawn.