One of the more surprising but exciting developments that came out of this year’s federal budget is the government’s commitment to gender-responsive budgeting and gender impact analysis. Very often, policies which are meant to be beneficial to all actually benefit men more, since they are considered to be the ‘average’ Australian due to a lack of data and consideration of women’s specific needs.
Gender impact analysis will mean that the government will look at how all major spending initiatives will impact women specifically – something which has been desperately missing for many years. Any budgetary spending must consider how it impacts gender equality outcomes and will better address gender bias and discrimination, so that policies benefit all more equally. This is referred to as gender-responsive budgeting.
Why do we need gender impact analysis and gender responsive budgeting?
Women make up over half of Australia’s population, yet we rank 70th in the world for the gender gap in economic participation and opportunity. It is going to take serious investments by governments to change this, and gender-responsive budgeting is a great place to start.
Gender-responsive budgeting will create better and fairer outcomes and ensure that women and gender diverse people have equal access to opportunities and resources by embedding gender equality throughout the policy development and budget process.
It’s great to see the government’s commitment to gender responsive budgeting and gender impact anaylsis, particularly when this issue isn’t well covered by the media so many people don’t understand what it is and how much it could benefit all of us.
However, there’s currently a lack of detail and transparency in what measures are actually assessed and what the process will look like, as well as what policy initiatives will have gender-responsive budgeting process applied. We will advocate for as many areas as possible to receive the analysis – especially areas that will have the biggest impact on the lives of women, like housing, social supports and services, and health.
We hope the introduction of gender-responsive budgeting and gender impact analysis will mean big steps towards gender equality in Australia.
