A FAIR SHARE OF THE PIE OR PIE
IN THE SKY: THE BUDGET AS AN
INSTRUMENT OF PUBLIC POLICY
TOT on Gender Responsive Budgeting
Sponsored by UN Women
Russian Presidential Academy on the Economy and Public
Administration
Moscow, 18-22 June, 2012
Sheila Quinn, Gender Specialist, Ireland
A FAIR SHARE OF THE PIE OR PIE IN THE
SKY?
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sheilagquinn@gmail.com
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A radical concept – to consider that gender
equality matters should be considered in the
context of the budget
Gender equality is considered to be fundamental
to human development that there should be no
boundaries to finding the way to make it possible
This lecture will look at the response to GRB over
the last 2 decades to demonstrate that the
legitimacy of using the budget as a vehicle for
progressing equality has been established.
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THE KING’S PURSE – BUDJET (MIDDLE
ENGLISH)
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The King was in his Counting House
Counting out his money.
The Queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes
Along came a blackbird
And ……..
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WHAT IS THE BUDGET?
A
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set of document, a set of laws,
a plan for getting (revenue) and
spending (expenditure)
The expression of the
government’s fiscal policy
Government’s instrument to
‘correct’ the market, to impact on
the economy
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WHAT IS THE BUDGET?
 Price
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stability, inflation control,
golden rule, economic growth,
crowding out, aggregate demand,
capital investment, distribution of
income
 Economic aid, children’s allowance,
price of shoes, prescription charges,
community health services, price of
petrol – even the price of a pint.
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WHAT IS THE BUDGET?
 The
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most important policy
document
 A reflection of the government’s
priorities
 Process involving a few – legislators
and parliamentarian have limited
input – public even less
 To a large extent separate from
policy making
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THE COUNTING HOUSE – FORBIDDEN
TERRAIN
 Finance
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– the pinnacle of portfolios
 Elitism of economics
 Limited number of decision-makers
 Certainly not for the social agenda
 Limited communication with other
departments
 Imbalance between involvement of on
independent advisers and non public
representatives
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TRADITIONAL VIEW OF THE BUDGET
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Technical instrument of public finance
management – value free, benefits all equally
Instrument of control – goal is to get optimum
results – guided by concerns for economy and
value for money
Competing priorities – scarce resources – need to
ensure maximum public good
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CONVENTIONAL MODEL OF ECONOMY
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ASSUMPTIONS
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Households do not produce – merely consume
Household treated as a unit – no cognizance of
bargaining roles within household
Role of government is to redistribute income and
increase (if G is greater than T: deficit) or reduce (if T
is greater than G: surplus) aggregate demand
Stock of natural resources, labour & social framework
is taken for granted, required no work to maintain
these resources
Economy is in equilibrium if savings + imports =
investments plus exports
However, equilibrium does not guarantee full
employment, absence of poverty & human
development
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INTRODUCING GENDER INTO THE MODEL
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Elson examines elements of applying gender
disaggregation into the models
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Proportion of government spend to male/female headed
firms
Patterns of investment & export behaviour by gender
Patterns of income generation by gender
Proportion of national income to household by gender
Patterns of saving and spending within household by
gender
Taxes & transfer payments differences by gender
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Limitations of this approach:
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No focus of interplay within households and within firms –
units
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Ignores domestic reproductive work + voluntary &
community work, ie. the unpaid care economy
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CARE ECONOMY AS PART OF OUTPUT
Private sector commodity market
 Public service economy
 Household and community care economy
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Elson goes on to argue that it’s possible to
incorporate the care economy into macroeconomic
thinking by focusing on the circular flow of
national output - as a product of the interaction
of all three sectors:
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INTERDEPENDENCE IN CREATION OF
NATIONAL WEALTH
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FLOW OF INCOME VS FLOW OUT OUTPUT
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work days lost, lower productivity due to ill health,
higher insurance costs, policing etc
Affect level of growth of output
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However, care economy overburdened = negative
feedbacks to commodity and public service
economies:
This economists understand – recognise the need
to invest in care economy either through public
services or decent jobs
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Much of investment in care economy is best supplied
through public services free at the point of delivery –
historically the improvement in production from care
economy has come through improvements in public
services
Public service economy financed by taxes on formal
sector commodity economy
When taxes do not meet the required investment –
budgetary strategies reducing investment in public
services
Avoid the deficit theory – however deficit can have
positive and negative effects – so can be managed
One negative of deficit is reduction in public services
– but does this have to happen?
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Investment in public sector services can have
powerful positive impact on growth and thereby
on private sector
 Externalities: eg education raises productivity of
individual but also others with whom that
individual interacts (if I’m computer literate
others save time by communicating with me via
computer)
 This implies that public expenditure on education
should be treated as investment rather than
consumption
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This is often determined by computer
macroeconomic model to project outcomes based
on variables
Answers will depend on assumptions fed in
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A key issue of aggregate budgetary policy is the
extent to which a budget deficit is sustainable
How increase in monetary supply affect inflation;
increased borrowing on interest rates, increased
interest rates deter private sector investmen
Negative feedback to economy from overburdened
care economy not built into such models
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Organisation of financial markets and market
sensitivity, organisation of wage negotiations, cooperative or competitive responses to budget, social
bargaining
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Other factors – less tangible impact
sustainability of deficits: Climate of opinion,
institutional structures
Social framework of norms, rules, values – social
capital – assumed to be constant
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ECONOMIC THEORY – POLICY MAKING
 Budget-making
 However,
economic theorising (based on
market interests & priorities) has gained
a foothold
economic man, golden rule,
deadweight loss and displacement,
deficit=bad, surplus=good
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essentially a political
exercise, based on public best interests &
priorities
 Autonomous
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CHANGES IN ECONOMIC THINKING
 Some
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economists are beginning to pay
attention to social capital – impact of
rapid deflation and inflation on goodwill
and acceptance of social norms which are
recognised as necessary for functioning of
economies
 However,
they do not connect the
maintenance of social capital to women’s
unpaid work in the care economy
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MOVEMENT TOWARD REFORM OF BUDGET
GOVERNANCE
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The trend away from line item budgeting
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variations, including activity-based budgeting,
programme budgeting, outputs and outcomes
budgeting.
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Countries are motivated by considerations of
transparency and efficiency
Broadly the approach involves the incorporation of
performance information in the budget process, thus
seeking to influence budget decisions.
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MOVEMENT TOWARDS PERFORMANCE
BUDGETING
Aim is to allocate more money to activities that
produce wanted results and less to those than do
not.
 Idea is that government should budget for actual
or expected results – outputs and outcomes,
rather than for inputs (personnel, supplies etc.
 Budget system should link increments in
spending to increments in results
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GENDER RESPONSIVE BUDGETING AS
PART OF THE REFORM PROCESS IN
AUSTRIA
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Constitutional budgetary principle as of 2013:
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Integrated approach: Gender dimension is considered on
all budget management levels such as strategy report
(medium term), budget chapters, global budgets etc
Does not mean to allocate separate budgets for men &
women
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Outcome orientation including gender budgeting
Implementation of gender mainstreaming in budgeting
Requires gender analysis
 definition of objectives
 formulation of activities in order to achieve the objectives, and
 monitoring
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EQUALITY OR EXPEDIENCY
Every country, every company in the world is
looking for growth wherever they can find it. It’s
coming from the emerging markets … We
historically think of those emerging markets as
India and China and many others. But it is clear
that women are an emerging market - DeAnne
Aguirre, Snr VP, Booz & Company
 By increasing women’s participation in the
economy and enhancing their efficiency and
productivity, we can bring about a dramatic
impact on the competitiveness and growth of our
economies – Hilary Clinton
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EQUALITY OR EXPEDIENCY
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“Forget China, India and the
internet: economic growth
is driven by women.”
The Economist
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WOMEN AS CENTRAL TO POVERTY
REDUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Central and developing tenet of development
thinking
 International law points directly to all economic
means, including the budget as a method of
expediting equality
 Gender Mainstreaming in place, but without a
focus on spending gender mainstreaming is a
blunt instrument
 Without a focus on gender the budget as an
instrument of redistribution is a blunt
instrument

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GRB AS LIBERATOR
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Framing gender issues in terms of an
economic discourse, gender budgeting
'liberates' gender (and gender
mainstreaming) from the 'soft' social
issues arena and raises it to the level
of macroeconomics, which is often
thought of as technical, value-free and
gender-neutral.
Holvoet, Nathalie, (2006) Gender Budgeting: Its Usefulness in Programme-Based Approaches to
Aid, EC Gender Help Desk
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THE BUDGET AS AN INSTRUMENT OF
GENDER EQUALITY
Scores of budget initiatives all over the world
 Multilateral and intergovernmental
organisations pushing for budget reform
 Consensus between the two camps
 Several countries with legal obligation to produce
women’s budget statement
 Several countries legislated for GRB
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Countries with positive duty to promote equality,
including through budget process
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THE BUDGET AS AN INSTRUMENT TO
ADVANCE EQUALITY
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The Counting House
is no longer
forbidden terrain
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