Macroeconomic policy tools to finance gender equality

Abstract

Feminist economists and heterodox macroeconomists have contributed substantively to the body of research that explores the distributional effects of macro policies. This work explicitly addresses the livelihood problems created by neoliberalism and, in addition, it provides a pathway for identifying financing mechanisms. Building on earlier work by Seguino and Grown (2006), this article synthesizes and elaborates the major contributions of this body of gender and macro research and, from this, extrapolates macro-level policies and tools that support gender equality. Among the tools identified is targeted government spending on physical and social infrastructure, the latter a relatively new conceptual tool that is discussed in detail. A key argument is that financing for gender equality that raises economy-wide productivity can be self-sustaining. As a result, both physical and social infrastructure spending have the ability to create fiscal space. This possibility offers a financing framework for gender equality expenditures. A contribution of this article is to critique mainstream monetary policies and identify alternative approaches that expand the toolkit to achieve gender equality goals. K E Y W O R D Sfiscal policy, fiscal space, gender, monetary policy, public investment

Empoderamiento e impacto del trabajo de cuidados en emprendedoras en Tijuana (México)

“…Para lo anterior se recomienda mantener la aplicación transversal del enfoque de género y apoyar los procesos de formación de las emprendedoras, así como la generación de estrategias para evitar áreas de emprendimientos feminizadas y la promoción de modelos más equitativos de emprendedoras, un ejemplo de esto es apoyar los permisos por paternidad, las custodias compartidas y otros arreglos que coadyuven a una participación más activa por parte de los varones en el rol de cuidadores; de igual forma, pueden soportar sus políticas desde las macroesferas para generar efectos potenciadores de las políticas de equidad de los niveles meso y micro (Lewis, 2015, Bear, 2019Seguino, 2019).…”

“…Ochman Ikanowicz (2016) señala que los programas de transferencia condicionada de dinero han contribuido a la satisfacción de las necesidades básicas de las mujeres, pero sin fortalecer su autonomía. Al respecto, Seguino (2019) propone generar ambientes macroeconómicos más favorables que apoyen las micropolíticas de empoderamiento de las mujeres, esta sugerencia busca fortalecer los procesos de empoderamiento a través de la concatenación de las escalas micro (por ejemplo, educación o acceso a los recursos productivos) con aquellas de nivel macro, capaces de movilizar recursos societales e impactar en las condiciones macroeconómicas que incrementan la vulnerabilidad económica de las mujeres.…”

Gender-based characteristics of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in an emerging country: is this a man’s world?

“…Further, there is no specific, well-planned support for female-owned MSME creation or investment. Some of the problems that these enterprises face include inadequate access to financing and property, a lack of technology, inadequate training and support services and the lack of a family-friendly institutional environment to balance both family and business activities, among others (CIEC, 2018; Molina-Ycaza and Sánchez-Riofrío, 2016; Seguino, 2019; Villaseca et al , 2021). Additionally, the Ecuadorian institutional environment has been constantly changing over the past 12 years.…”

Governing the Interlinkages between the SDGs

“…If higher tax revenues from corporate taxes are used as government expenditure in enhancing human capabilities and ensuring the availability of a productive labor supply, this will enable sustained growth in demand. The net profits will rise despite initial tax increase (Braunstein, Bouhia, and Seguino, 2019;Seguino, 2012Seguino, , 2019a; UN Conference on Trade and In Figure 12.5, the left panel plots VAT for each country and the right panel denotes revenue from corporate taxes. Mongolia that can be considered as an example of inequality led growth shows one of the highest increases in VAT com pared to the other three countries, while corporate taxes increased until 2010 and subsequently had a steep decline.…”

“…In one of his seminal works, Bourguignon (2004) acknowledged that growth alone is not sufficient to reduce poverty, but what is important is how this growth is redistributed. Thus, there is a need to introduce active pro-poor policies in the form of government redistribution that also tackle inequality and move beyond the 'trickle down' narrative that economic growth alone is good to reduce poverty (Seguino, 2019a). More than a decade after Bourguignon's paper was published; the Agenda 2030 emphasized the need to consider the interrelated nature of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and highlighted the synergetic role of reducing inequality and eradicating poverty as an overarching goal, anchored on a strategy of 'Leaving no one behind'.…”