Integrating Gender into Macro-economic/Development Policy: The

Experience of Gender Responsive Budgeting in Kerala

Dr. Mridul Eapen

Hon.Fellow, Centre for Development Studies,

Trivandrum 695 011

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Introduction

• As we reflected yesterday, one thought which would strike everybody is why after decades of struggle to achieve gender equality, it continues to elude us despite it being well recognised now that development is not gender neutral (that is there is a male centric bias).

• And with this persistent mismatch between government macro policy and development outcomes for women, feminist scrutiny has increasingly focussed on macro economic policy and its gender blindness.

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• This is so especially in the context of policies of market oriented economic reforms adopted in a number of developing economies since the 80s and 90s, which have not been effective in removing poverty and human deprivation.

• Enough documented evidence exists which reveals that the restructuring process is occurring on a gendered terrain. Women’s unpaid reproductive work has intensified and productive work is generated in primarily unorganised forms with barely any social protection. It also created a tendency towards skill polarisation.

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• While most of the feminist critique of economic reforms has focussed on examining the impact at the level of the family, it is necessary to go beyond this and analyse how male bias is constituted at the meso and macro level, that is at the level of the mediating institutions and monetary aggregates.

• The issue ofcourse is how institutions and monetary aggregates which are not intrinsically gendered become bearers of gender, permeated through and through by gender in their institutional structure.

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• At the meso level, the operation of markets, firms and public sector agencies is gendered via the social norms and networks which are functional to the smooth functioning of these institutions.

• At the macro level, the important thing is the role of money, which mobilises human effort the output of which gets counted in the gross national product.

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• But money’s mobilising power is incomplete since its ability to mobilise labour power for productive work depends on the operation of some non-monetary set of social relations to mobilise labour power for “reproductive” work.

• The monetary economy cannot sustain itself without an input of unpaid labour shaped by the structure of gender relations, the burden of reproductive work falling largely on women

• Macro economic policies do not consider women’s unpaid reproductive labour: it takes the “reproductive economy” for granted assuming it can continue to function adequately no matter how much its relation to the productive economy is disrupted. This is because of an implicit assumption that the reproductive economy can accommodate itself to whatever changes macro policy introduces esp to withdrawals of public services and subsidies and decline in public sector employment and to rises in prices and taxes.

• Since women undertake most work in the reproductive economy this is equivalent to assuming an unlimited supply of female labour able to compensate for any adverse changes resulting from macro eco policy, so as to continue to meet the basic needs of their families and communities and sustain them as social organistaions. 7

• There is an interdependence between the non-monetised (reproductive) and monetised economy an implication of which ofcourse is that money and all its forms become bearers of gender expressing male bias in the development process.

• This is reflected both in quantitative terms (as in wage differentials between men and women) and qualitative terms (as in the difference between paid work which is recognised as productive/economic work and unpaid work which is not).

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• This interdependence cannot be successfully regulated by individual contract and monetary relations.

• Mediation of organisations of the State and community, provision of public services and community mutual aid are essential to avoid destitution and social breakdown and enhance human development in ways that promote productivity in the monetised economy.

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• A feminist critique of economic policy reform at the macro level can be developed in terms of an analysis of how policy treats the interdependence between the ‘productive’ and the ‘reproductive’ economy; between making a profit and meeting needs.

• The question is: How do we engender macro policy which is a political given for most developing economies undergoing economic reform. When does the state respond?

• An attempt to incorporate the household sector in macroeconomic modelling for which a theoretical framework is required was attempted in the mid nineties but is yet to be fully developed though efforts are continuing

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• How much space is there for gender advocacy in the context of globalisation/liberalisation when State’s own control over public finance decisions is reduced.

• Certain modifications have been introduced over time by the World Bank in respect of its “austerity conditions”; and further, endorsing “good governance” (decentralisation) as a core component of its development strategy.

• Ar the same time organised resistance to reforms due to the growing inequalities within and across regions, making certain sections of the people worse off, has compelled governments to consider pro-poor policies in their restructuring initiatives to make development more “inclusive”.

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• This creates some space for intervention in terms of gender.

• One of the most important areas of macroeconomic policy and a point of entry which has gained widespread acceptance is engendering a Budget. Bringing together public expenditures and public revenues, the budget which commands substantial resources, is seen as the macro economic stance of a government, reflecting its social and economic priorities. The rationale for GRB initiatives lies in the fact that its methodology recognises women’s ‘reproductive’ unpaid labour and the extant unequal gender relations, providing us tools to integrate gender into budgeting/planning.

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• While GB methodology as it evolved in the Australian context in the 80s, did include the need for Time Use Surveys, experience over the last two decades has resulted in some modification of the tools to make them simpler to use and broadly a five step approach has been developed, but in more recent variants of it, time use surveys seem to have lost out.

• We strongly advocate the need to collect data on unpaid care work thru TUS since the costs of such labour are a major driver of gender inequalities, both within households and beyond.

• However, in the 11th Plan period we did try to evolve a pragmatic approach to GRB in Kerala using some of the tools laid out and TUSs done earlier to emphasise the unequal burden of household work on women..

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Methodology of Gender Responsive BudgetingFirst, is a description of the situation of girls/boys, women/men in

a given sector to identify gender differences;= a needs assessment

Second, is an assessment of the extent to which the sector’s policy addresses the gender issues and gaps identified in the first step (an assessment of the relevant legislations is also essential);

Third, is an ex-post analysis of the Budget focusing on the expenditure side to see where funds have been allocated; do the programmes address the above identified gender gaps and are the allocations adequate; composition of expenditures.

Fourth, is to move beyond financial numbers and monitor whether

the money allocated has been spent as planned, what was delivered and to whom. This involves checking both financial allocations and the physical deliverables (disaggregated by sex);effectiveness of service delivery; and

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Fifth, involves assessment of the impact of the policy/programme/scheme and the extent to which the situation described in the First step has been changed in the direction of greater gender equality.Expenditure and taxation policies have different implications for women and men and differentially affect their abilities to contribute to production for the market and the care of families and communities. These implications can be revealed through gender-disaggregated incidence analysis of public expenditure and of taxation and income transfers.

The most commonly used tools of GB are (i) a situational analysis of girls/boys, men/women with a gender aware policy appraisal; and (ii) an ex-post gender sensitive analysis of the Budget focusing on the expenditure side.

• Monitoring and assessing gender impact of projects is rarely undertaken.  

• We briefly demonstrate how we can use this framework for doing a GB exercise highlighting the limitations of doing even this minimum exercise(i.e.an ex-post analysis of the budget) which has encouraged scholars and activists to move beyond financial numbers towards more meaningful ways of using the GB methodology for addressing issues of concern to women.

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Using the GB Framework to do a Gender Sensitive Analysis of Budgets: a Summary Statement

• The classification of expenditure in the Budget, is given by Plan and non-Plan, by major heads of account which indicate the different functions of the government. A Demand is proposed for each function and the expenditure on revenue account, and the expenditure on capital account relating to a function are brought together under the same demand which gives us an idea of the total cost of each function. Under each major head there are minor heads denoting the various programmes under the particular function.

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• On the expenditure side the focus of the Gender Budget has been on (a) women specific programmes (that is 100 percent for women);(b) those with a stipulated allocation for women or an anticipated flow of at least 30 percent of the resources to women, based on secondary data and /or experiential evidence regarding beneficiaries by gender as consumers, workers or producers of the goods and services delivered by the programmes and © the general or mainstream expenditures.

• The former is categorized as Part A and the second as Part B in the Gender Budget Statement presented along with the Union Budget. The proportion that is anticipated to flow to women and reason thereof is not specified in the GB statement against each head but which we did for Kerala

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•The two together, that is Part A and Part B, give us the total financial allocation of resources flowing to women. •This is in terms of Plan funds; gender disaggregation of non-plan expenditure is difficult even for 100 percent women specific programmes unless we have some idea of the employment pattern by men/women in each sector. While the GB statement for the Union Budget gives the women allocation for non-plan expenditures also, once again the rationale for the percentage taken is not known.

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Limitations of this Exercise •It has not been easy to track the flow of resources to women in Part B in the absence of gender disaggregated data. While the GB methodology (steps 4 and 5) does allow for monitoring the flow of funds of each project by girls/boys, men/women to get some idea of how much flows to women, as stated earlier, this normally does not get done since it requires field level surveys.•Moreover, this exercise is done for ‘gender related’ sectors, like Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Dairy, Fisheries, Rural Development, Education, Health, Social Welfare, Small/Traditional Industries, which constitute not more than 35-40 percent of Plan expenditures.  

 

• Almost 60-65 percent of Plan outlays in the so-called ‘gender unrelated’ sectors remain outside the purview of the GB exercise. The biggest methodological challenge is to unravel the ‘general’ or gender unrelated sector expenditures like Public Works, Water Supply and Sanitation, Forest, Irrigation, Power, Ports and Transport, for which it is difficult to disaggregate the beneficiaries by gender.

• This indeed is a very unsatisfactory situation and appears to get bogged down in a number crunching game of ‘guessestimating’ financial flow of resources to women in the absence of reliable gender disaggregated data.

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Moving Towards a More Pragmatic Approach: Kerala Budget 2010-11

• Given the difficulties of assessing the resource flow to women from schemes as presently written up, in particular those not specifically meant for women from the budgetary / plan data, it becomes essential to provide Department officials with simple guidelines for making gender sensitive write-ups for schemes in women related and unrelated sectors (checklists I, II and III prepared by Ministry of Women and Child Development, GoI are helpful and adequate). •What becomes clear therefore is that the Gender Budgeting exercise needs to be done at more than one level: 

• At one level is the need to make the financial data more reliable and proximate the actual flow of resources to women which we should continue to do primarily through improving project/scheme proposal write-ups in the Budget/Plan and if possible field level monitoring.

• It is imperative to check that the flow of resources to women is not declining over time. Ofcourse there is the ‘women’ vs ‘gender’ issue; expenditures that are targeted at women may not necessarily advance gender equity, but we leave it aside for the time being

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At another level is to focus on programmes rather than finances and to then ensure that funds are made available for these schemes. This means we need to plan (a) women specific projects in women unrelated sectors to visibilise them in all sectors of development; and (b) to plan new initiatives in gender related sectors depending on women’s priorities as perceived in the specific context of a state/country. •For instance it was decided that in this year, 2010-11, a major focus would be on women friendly infrastructure. The government of Kerala was investing heavily in infrastructure, especially in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis; how do we corner some of these resources for women.

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•We know that women too need infrastructure, not just roads, bridges, flyovers, deep port terminals etc but basic amenities when they travel or where they work; a safe/secure environment at home and in public places; water, sanitation, fuel and housing providing them support to participate in paid work. It is in this context that a major scheme for women was formulated covering even sectors normally excluded from a GB exercise but which are linked with women’s potential for paid work and reducing the burden of unpaid work, with commendable cooperation from the State Departments: Gender Friendly Infrastructure- both Physical and Social (including skill development). The scheme in which Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), Public Works Department (PWD), Police, Ports, Housing, as also Health, Social Welfare and IT sectors play a crucial role

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2009-10 2010-11 1.Police 1.Education,sports, art and culture 2. Education, sports, art and culture 2.Medical, public health, family welfare 3.Medical, public health, family welfare 4.Urban development 5.Information and publicity 3.Labour and labour welfare 6.Labour and labour welfare 4.Welfare of SC/ST/OBC 7.Welfare of SC/ST/OBC 5.Agriculture 8.Agriculture 6.Animal husbandry 9.Animal husbandry 7.Fisheries 10.Fisheries 8.Community development 11.Community development 9.Industries 12.Industries 13. Power 14.Ports 15.Transport 16.Tourism 10.Social security and welfare 17.Social security and welfare

• 100 percent women specific schemes accounted for 5.6 percent of total Plan Budget; this has risen to 8.5 percent with the additional funding in 2010-11 and went upto almost 10 percent in 2011-12 Budget. Needless to state this was possible due to the full support from the Departments.

• Our attempt was at mainstreaming gender across sectors and make them more visible- all the schemes were in their respective Departments and we were able to crack open the gender unrelated sectors

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• This exercise could be strengthened by arguing for including targets not only for monetary aggregates and policy instruments for achieving them but also targets for human development aggregates and policy instruments for delivering them in all programmes.

• Another question we could frame is: Has the interdependence between productive and reproductive economy taken into account.

• The key issues we need to address in attempts to engender macro economic policy reforms is the one sided emphasis by policy makers on paid work in the productive economy and a negelct of unapid work in the reproductive economy.

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Conclusion• The budget therefore, has proven a useful place to start work

on engendering macroeconomic policy because gender concerns are more visible in fiscal policy than in monetary policy. Since budgets have an annual cycle, this focus also allows the processes of analysis, problem identification, implementation of corrective measures, and monitoring and evaluation of impacts to be completed within a relatively short time. The government has to have a commitment to the process. In Kerala this was announced in the Budget speech of the FM and a willingness to accept women centric programmes were evident in the allocation of resources in each year’s Budget.

• Such an initiative is critical to engendering Planning/Budget making.

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References:1. Debbie Budlender et al (2002):Gender Budgets make Cents:

Understanding Gender Responsive Budgets, Gender Affairs Dept, Commonwealth Secretariat, London.(also Make More Cents).

2. Ministry of WCD (2011): Report of Sub-group V of Working Group on Women’s Agency and Empowerment for the 12th Five Year Plan on Gender Mainstreaming and Effective Accountability Mechanisms

3. Yamini Mishra (2011): Breaking New Frontiers for Gender Responsive Budgeting, The Kerala Model, South, East and South East Asia, UN Women.

4. Diane Elson (1994)Micro, Meso, Macro:Gender and Economic Analysis In the Context of Policy Reform in (ed)Isabella Bakker, The Strategic Silence:Gender and Macro Policy, Zed Books.

5. Mridul Eapen et al (2008): Introduction to Gender Budgeting: A Gender Responsive Analysis of Kerala Budget 2008-09,State Planning Board and Gender Advisory Board, Trivandrum. Exercise continued for 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12

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