Gender budgets have now been introduced in varying forms in more than forty countries throughout the world. These exercises emerged out of feminist practical politics initially in Australia and later in a number of other countries. The idea of gender budgets gathered further momentum when the United Nations Beijing Platform for Action called for the integration of a gender perspective into budgetary decision-making. Most of these experiments share three core goals. They seek to: (1) mainstream gender issues within government policies; (2) promote greater accountability for governments' commitment to gender equality; and (3) change budgets and policies. However, very little research has examined their success in achieving these goals. In discussing the lessons learnt from the Australian experience, this paper adopts a feminist political economy perspective on the state as an analytical starting point for discussing the future of gender budgets elsewhere in the world.Gender Budgets, Women'S Budgets, Government Expenditure, Taxation, Economic Restructuring, Gender Mainstreaming,
Complex changes have occurred in the Australian gender order in the past few decades. A strong version of a male breadwinner/female carer gender order was an important component of early 2(Jh century Australian social, economic and political institutional frameworks. While the male breadwinner model was far from either universal or uniform in the post World War //period, significant further changes have recently occurred. Although many aspects of the traditional gender order remain intact, it has been profoundly disrupted by restructuring within the labour market and also by the decline of the nuclear family and other socio-economic changes affecting gender arrangements within households. These changes have led to increased complexity and diversity in existing gender arrangements. Furthermore, changes and continuities in gender arrangements have not been experienced evenly and a growing polarisation has occurred in the gender roles and arrangements within different socio-economic groups in society. The winners and losers from the impact of economic and social restructuring are frequently engaged in quite different strategies of adjustment, resulting in both changed and reinforced versions of the traditional male breadwinner model.
In recognition of the significant, but often unknown, impact of government budgets on the role and status of women, both Federal and State Labor government administrations have introduced ‘women's budget’ statements. It is important to recognise that the political motivation of governments in establishing women's budgets has been primarily political self interest. To some extent, however, the move also reflects the growing economic focus, and power, of the women's movement. This paper examines the content and limitations of women's budget programs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.