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Gender Equity: Challenges and Opportunities pp 127–135 Cite as

Analysis of Gender Budgeting in India

  • Aswathy Ann Thomas 6  
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Women in India are a marginalized community. They also derive fewer benefits compared to men from certain policies and programme. One way to bridge the gender gap is through policies and programmes by the government, and this is done through the budget. The process of gender budgeting can translate the gender goals to budgetary responsibilities and can assist the country in achieving Goal 5 in the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper will discuss on the importance of gender budgeting in improving the status of women in India. It will analyse the trends in gender budgeting over the last fifteen years since its inception in 2005–2006.

  • Gender budget
  • Union budget
  • Gender equality
  • Gender budget statement

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Stotsky, J.G., and A. Zaman. 2016. The Influence of Gender Budgeting in Indian States on Gender Inequality and Fiscal Spending . International Monetary Fund.

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Das, S., D. Thakur, and S. Sikdar. 2006. Report of the Gender Budgeting Study for West Bengal . Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability.

Lahiri, A. 2019. Fifteen Years of Gender Budgeting in India: A Retrospective, October 29, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/social-identity/fifteen-years-of-gender-budgeting-in-india-a-retrospective.html .

Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. 2020. Annual Report 2019–2020 .

Ministry of Women and Child Development. 2007. Gender Budgeting Handbook for Government of India. Ministries & Departments .

Mehta, A.K. 2020. Union Budget 2020–21: A Critical Analysis from the Gender Perspective. Economic and Political Weekly , April 18, 2020.

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Department of Economics, Madras Christian College, Chennai, India

Aswathy Ann Thomas

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Department of Electrical Engineering, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, India

Vasundhara Mahajan

Anandita Chowdhury

Department of Applied Mathematics and Humanities, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, India

Urvashi Kaushal

Department of Civil Engineering, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, Gujarat, India

Namrta Jariwala

School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University, Selangor, Malaysia

Sharon A. Bong

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Thomas, A.A. (2022). Analysis of Gender Budgeting in India. In: Mahajan, V., Chowdhury, A., Kaushal, U., Jariwala, N., Bong, S.A. (eds) Gender Equity: Challenges and Opportunities. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0460-8_13

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research paper on gender budgeting in india

Fifteen years of gender budgeting in India: A Retrospective

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Ashok Lahiri

15th Finance Commission

[email protected]

In this year’s Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that she will constitute a committee to evaluate 15 years of gender budgeting. It entails looking at the budget through the gender lens. In this post, Ashok K. Lahiri discusses what is gender budgeting and why it is needed, its achievements and issues so far, and the way forward.

In her 2019 Union Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman described Naari (woman) as Narayani (goddess) and said that she will constitute a committee to evaluate 15 years of gender budgeting.

She reminded us what Swami Vivekananda said in the context of gender equality. Vivekananda said “It is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing”. Much later, Mao Zedong, the former Chairman of China, who was a poet and had his way with words, summed it up well when he said “Women hold up half the sky”. Women are as important as, if not more than, men.

Who did we or do we see coming back in the evening from the farm or work, prepare dinner, look after the children, make the beds, and then retire only after everybody else, whose needs have been looked after, have gone to sleep? Our mothers earlier, and later our wives. From whom did we learn our first alphabets, numbers, rhymes, and mythological stories? From our mothers. Researchers tell us that there is some evidence in favour of the ‘good mother hypothesis’ that asserts that consumption of child-specific goods and child well-being may be superior in families in which mothers have greater control over economic resources (see for example, Phipps and Burton 1998). A country, which does not do as much for women as for men, wastes its potential. A focus on women is necessary not only from the equity angle, but also from the efficiency point of view.

What is gender budgeting?

It is a look at the budget through the gender lens. Let me emphasise that it is not a separate budget for women, but an analysis of the budget to examine its gender-specific impact, and to translate gender commitments into budgetary operations. It is extremely important to remember that all budgetary operations and their benefits do not lend themselves to gender partitioning. Public goods are characterised by non-rivalry and non-exclusiveness. Defence, for example, is as important for you as for me, irrespective of whether you are a man or a woman. There is hardly anything to be achieved by trying to apportion the benefits from defence between men and women. But, there is likely to be little disagreement that the Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojana promising unmarried girls Rs. 10,000 for passing the 12 th grade examination, and Rs. 25,000 for completing graduation benefits women more than men. Men, in their capacity as fathers, brothers, and sons are also benefitted, but women benefit more.

As some other examples, let us take drinking water and cooking fuel. Whenever available only at a distance, these are fetched mostly by our women. Thus, Nal se Jal or piped water supply scheme, 2019, and Ujjwala Yojana , 2016 are likely to benefit women more than men. 1 Groups of women in colourful ethnic clothing carrying headloads of stacked water pitchers or fuel wood may appear elegant and even be good for attracting foreign tourists. But, these cannot be pleasing vocations for those engaged in the enterprise. Cooking is done almost exclusively by our women and not by us men. Indoor air pollution due to unclean fuel kills millions of women from heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer. According to experts, having an open fire in the kitchen is like burning 400 cigarettes an hour. Similarly, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) provides another example. Women are more sensitive, and hence more restrained in committing nuisance in public spaces. Thus, this nation-wide campaign through the construction of household-owned and community-owned toilets will benefit them more than men.

Let us look at the genesis of gender budgeting not only in India but across countries in brief. Economists, in general, had looked at the ‘family’ or ‘household’ as the basic unit of analysis. The decisions of the family were that of a single homogenous unit taken collectively for the collective good. It could be analogous to one taken by a benevolent dictator. An increase in household income meant everyone in the household would be better off. A decrease in inter-household inequality was better for the society – implicitly, it was supposed to mean a less unequal distribution of income across individuals. In the 18 th and 19 th centuries, social scientists or economists such as Malthus, Marx, or Engels did point out the importance of economic factors in determining family characteristics such as the age for marriage, at what age to have children or how many children to have.

But, the need to carefully focus on the determinants of family decisions in the allocation of resources among members of the household came to be emphasised in the last two decades of the 20 th century, most notably by the Nobel Laureate Gary Becker in his path-breaking book, A Treatise on the Family, published in 1981. Becker’s approach, for example, helped us understand that poor married couples might have more children partly because to them, children are ‘cheaper’ in terms of the value of time spent and income foregone.

Awareness about the complex decision-making process of allocating resources within the family gave rise to studies of intra-household inequalities. The inequality between men and women was easy to detect. In 1990, in the New York Review of Books, Amartya Sen wrote about ‘missing women’. He pointed out that women tend to outnumber men in Europe and North America. But, in developing countries that is not true. He pointed out that though about 5% more boys are born relative to girls, the women are hardier than men and survive better at all ages. In developing countries, millions of missing women relative to how many there should have been there indicated the neglect of female health and nutrition. The sex ratio – that is number of women per 1,000 men – declined almost steadily from 946 in 1951 Census to 933 in the 2001 Census before increasing to 943 in 2011 Census. 2 The effective literacy ratio for females in 1951 at 8.9% was 18.3 percentage points below 27.2% for males. It increased to 29.8% in 1981, but relative to 56.4% for males it lagged behind by an even larger 26.6 percentage points. It is only after 1981 that we find that the gap between males and females in terms of literacy rates started declining. 3

The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979. CEDAW emphasised the importance of gender equality to strengthen prosperity and as a matter of basic human rights. Gender equality has been defined by the UN as “the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys.” From 1990, recognising the importance of human development in terms of life expectancy, education and income per capita, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was already publishing the Human Development Index (HDI) along with the Human Development Report (HDR) every year, except for 2012 and 2017. From 1995, along with the HDI, the Gender Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) were calculated and presented. GDI measures gender gaps in human development achievements by accounting for disparities between women and men in three basic dimensions of human development – health, knowledge, and living standards using the same component indicators as in the HDI. Also, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 laid out a vision of achieving gender equality in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

In September 2000, building upon a decade of major United Nations conferences and summits, world leaders came together at the UN Headquarters in New York to adopt the UN Millennium Declaration. One hundred and eighty-nine (189) nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge became the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. The 3rd goal was to ‘promote gender equality and empower women’ and the fifth was to ‘improve maternal health.’ The other goals were: (i) eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, (ii) universal primary education, (iv) reducing child mortality, (vi) combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, (vii) ensuring environmental sustainability, and (viii) developing a global partnership for development. In September 2010, the world recommitted itself to accelerate progress towards these goals.

The Gender Inequality Index (GII) was introduced in the 2010 HDR. GII measures gender inequalities in three important aspects of human development – reproductive health, measured by maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rates; empowerment, measured by proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females, and proportion of adult females and males aged 25 years and older with at least some secondary education; and economic status, expressed as labour market participation, and measured by labour force participation rate of female and male populations aged 15 years and older.

In 2015, the MDGs were substituted by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It followed the resolution by 193 UN General Assembly member countries on 25 September 2015. The 17 SDGs are to be achieved by 2030, and include promoting gender equality and empowering women as the fifth goal.

So, how have we done in terms of HDI, GDI, and GII? Figures 1-3 give the value of the index as well as India’s rank among the countries studied by the UNDP. It is important to remember though that the methodology of calculating these indices has undergone some changes since 1995. Also, the number of countries for which the HDI, GDI, and GII is calculated are not identical. Thus, the numbers and rankings over time are not strictly comparable, and provide only broad-brush pictures.

The value of HDI has increased (the blue line) indicating an improvement in absolute terms (Figure 1). Relative to the rest of the world, after a very poor performance during 1995-2010, we have done only moderately well since 2010. Our rank has improved from 135 (out of 188 countries) to 130 (out of 189 countries). Similarly, GDI has increased (the blue line) indicating an improvement in absolute terms (Figure 2). But, relative to the rest of the world, after slipping from 110 (out of 117) in 1995 to 151 (out of 158) in 2010, we have hardly moved! Our ranking barely changed to 149 (out of 164) in 2017.

Figure 1. HDI – value and rank across countries

research paper on gender budgeting in india

Figure 2. GDI – value and rank across countries

research paper on gender budgeting in india

Figure 3. GII – value and rank across countries

research paper on gender budgeting in india

Our performance seems to have been particularly worrying in GII (Figure 3). Remember that a decline in GII indicates a decline in inequality and hence an improvement, and a higher ranking among countries with a higher value of GII suggests a deterioration. Just as a reference, in 2017, there were 21 countries with GII less than 0.1. 4 The value of India’s GII declined from 0.687 in 1995 to 0.524 in 2017, and we improved our ranking from 17 (out of 121) in 1995 to 36 (out of 156) in 2015. But, in 2017, we slipped with our rank moving to 33 (out of 157). In a nutshell, in 2017, India ranked 130 th in terms of HDI and was a medium HDI country, but with a value of 0.841 for GDI, it ranked 149, which is more or less the same level of GDI as some low HDI countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, and Liberia. This dissonance between HDI and GDI is consistent with our poor performance in GII. We need to pay a lot more attention to gender issues, and gender budgeting is one of the instruments. I am sure some of you are waiting to ask “How do we compare with China?” In 2017, China, with a value of 0.752, ranked 86 th in terms of HDI; with a value of 0.955, ranked 89 th in terms of GDI; and with a value of 0.152, ranked 122 nd in terms of GII (Table 1). So, we are lagging behind in gender development and bridging the gender inequality. We need to remove these deficiencies, and gender budgeting can help in this regard.

A common definition of gender budgeting is “integrating a clear gender perspective within the overall context of the budgetary process through special processes and analytical tools, with a view to promoting gender-responsive policies” ( Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2016 ), Gender budgeting now has got significant history across countries, especially in the developed ones. In 1984, Australia was the pioneer in introducing a gender-sensitive budget. 5 Over time, all the G-7 countries have introduced gender budgeting in some form or the other. 6 For example, in Germany, from 2000, gender equality has been a guiding principle in the Joint Rules of Procedure of the Federal Ministries. Outside the G-7, Austria, Belgium, and Spain have become relatively strong performers in the field of gender budgeting. 7 South Korea has a substantive gender budgeting initiative, which applies to all levels of government. 8 Canada since 1995 is committed to conducting gender-based analysis of legislation, policies, and programmes. 9 South Africa started it in the mid-1990s. In South America, various countries, starting with Brazil at the sub-national level in 1997, have introduced gender budgeting. 10 Though gender budgeting is still in its nascent stages – more in the form of an art rather than a science – a lot can be learnt from a careful study of the inter-country experiences. For now, let me turn directly to gender budgeting in India.

Early on, the erstwhile Planning Commission, in the Ninth Plan (1997-2002), adopted a ‘Women’s Component Plan’ as one of the major strategies to achieve gender equality. One of the initiatives was, in 1997, to earmark 30% of developmental funds for women in all sectors. However, evidence on the Women’s Component Plan revealed that earmarking of Plan funds for gender development is only a second-best principle for integrating gender in macroeconomic policymaking, as the 30% was not spent effectively on women. Subsequently, India moved away from ‘component plans’ for women to macro-level gender budgeting in 2000, encompassing the entire budget.

Gender budgeting efforts in India have encompassed four sequential phases: (i) knowledge building and networking, (ii) institutionalising the process, (iii) capacity building, and (iv) enhancing accountability. Table 2 summarises these four phases to provide snapshot of the history of gender budgeting in India.

Table 2. Phases of gender budgeting in India

Source: Chakraborty (2016).

In 2000, the Government of India commissioned the NIPFP to undertake a comprehensive study on gender budgeting (Lahiri et al . 2000). This study, with which both Prof. Lekha Chakraborty and I had the privilege of being associated with, analysed the ‘Demand for Grants’ submitted by all the ministries and departments of central government. It is an extensive process to identify the programmes and schemes that existed, if any, for women and analyse the fiscal marksmanship of these spending programmes (that is, to assess the forecast errors or the deviation of budget estimates and revised estimates from actual results, which are released sequentially). This analysis was not selective, but covered all sectors.

Analysis of fiscal marksmanship indicated that there was a significant deviation of budgeted from actual expenditure, and the NIPFP coordinated with the Comptroller and Auditor General to understand the reasons for the deviation. One of the findings of the study was higher allocations per se had not ensured higher actual expenditure on gender-sensitive human development, and these findings led the researchers to conduct expenditure tracking analysis and benefit incidence analysis to understand the gender inequality effects of fiscal policies. Let me add though that poor marksmanship as manifested in significant departures of not only actuals from the budgeted, but even the revised and the budgeted, and the revised and the actual characterise not only expenditure on items related to women, but others as well. Such departures, when persistent over the years, raise serious issues about the integrity of the budget process.

The NIPFP study attempted an assessment of the benefit incidence of budget allocations and fiscal marksmanship, and traced the link between fiscal policy and gender development. 11 B ased on inputs from the NIPFP study and the recommendations of the Expert Committee on Classification of Budgetary Transactions of the Government of India, The Minister of Finance announced in the Union Budget speech for 2005-06 that gender budgeting would be institutionalised from the 2006-07 Union Budget. 12 As per the recommendations of the Expert Group, a Gender Budgeting Secretariat was placed in the Ministry of Finance, and Gender Budgeting Cells were constituted in the sectoral ministries.

So, how has gender budgeting progressed in India in the last 15 years? The answer to this is mixed – well and not so well. There is satisfaction to be derived from the fact that gender budgeting has been sustained for the last 15 years. Not only has it been sustained but it has even spread to subnational governments including states and union territories. Simultaneously, however, there is a need to make a lot more progress in several areas including data integrity, better fiscal marksmanship, reporting on a consistent basis, emphasis on outcomes rather than expenditure, and more analysis of gender budgeting both ex ante and ex post .

Gender budgeting – not only sustained but implemented in states and union territories

It is not only the union government, but also many of the states that have adopted gender budgeting. As per the Gender Budget Handbook (October 2015), of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), by January 2013, as many as 16 states had adopted gender budgeting (Table 3). Not only states, but even two union territories (UTs) – Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli – had adopted gender budgeting by the end of 2012.

Table 3. Gender budgeting in the states (year of adoption)

Note: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli are union territories and not states.

Source: Gender Budget Handbook, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, October 2015 .

Data integrity

Data integrity is essential for rigorous analysis of policies. Such integrity involves timely reporting of accurate data. But, such reporting doesn’t seem to be happening in the case of gender budgeting. Take a simple question such as the number of states that have adopted gender budgeting in India. While the Gender Budget Handbook (2015) reports 16 states doing gender budgeting, the MWCD website, accessed recently, yielded only the names of 13 states – Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tripura, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. Unless, MWCD was being extra frugal with words to mention only 13 out of a larger universe, or if I may say, lazy, we may take 13 as the number of states having adopted gender budgeting. Then, at least one must be wrong if not both. It is sad to see that this has happened at the ministry in charge of women and child development, which I am sure, has some of the best and the brightest in the land at its helm. I cannot believe for a moment that they have a cavalier attitude towards data. I hope MWCD will make the necessary correction at the earliest. The gravest problem with such misreporting is that while one mistake or inconsistency in the data may be a one-off mistake, it still raises troubling questions in the minds of the researchers.

Fiscal marksmanship in gender budgeting

The NIPFP had conducted the gender-analysis of the budget for 2000-2005 (Lahiri et al. 2000, 2001, 2002). From 2005-06, on similar lines as the NIPFP’s, came the ‘Gender Budget Statement’ in the Expenditure Budget, Volume 1 of the Union Budget documents. The problems with the Gender Budget Statement in Expenditure Budget are three.

First, the Gender Budget Statement gives the budget estimate for the coming year, and both the budget estimate as well as revised estimate for the year that is coming to a close. But it is silent about the actuals for the year before, for which, beyond the budget and revised estimates, actual figures are available. For example, Expenditure Budget Vol. 1 for 2013-14 would give the budget estimates for 2013-14 along with the budget and revised estimates for 2012-13. It does not present the actuals for the relevant categories for 2011-12, making it very difficult to comment on the fiscal marksmanship in gender budgeting. Fortunately, from the current year (2019-20), the Union Government’s Expenditure Budget has started reporting the actuals for the last but one preceding year (2017-18). For example, in 2017-18, relative to the budgeted Rs. 1,133.11 billion and revised estimate of Rs. 1,172.21 billion, the actual for 2017-18 reported in 2019-20 Budget is Rs. 928.84 billion, indicating a shortfall of 18% relative to the budget estimate and an even higher 20.8% shortfall relative to the revised estimate. Not very good marksmanship! What is surprising is that when even the budget estimates could not be achieved, why the figures were moved upward in the revised estimates! Furthermore, the line items included under a particular demand for grant in the Gender Budget change from year to year. Thus, for example, Demand for Grant No. 28 “Ministry of External Affairs” had 13 items in the Budget and Revised Estimates for 2017-18 included in the Gender Budget Statement in 2018-19, but the same demand for the Ministry of External Affairs (with number changed to 26) under actual for 2017-18 had 36 line items! With these changes, it is not very clear that the figures are strictly comparable.

Second, there are many budget line items included under Part A, which are 100% women-specific programmes and under Part B, which are 30% women-specific programmes. How and why many budget line items have been included under Part A or Part B is not at all obvious. For example, why expenditure on Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine, or rural housing under Indira Awas Yojana should be included as 100% women-specific expenditure under Part A is not at all obvious. What is intriguing is that while expenditure on Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine is under Part A, expenditure under Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences is under Part B.

Third, the Budget documents are not very user-friendly. Sometimes, they try to test the arithmetic skills as well as commitment and patience of the user by not presenting the totals for the budget estimates and revised estimates for Parts A and B, like in Statement 20, Volume 1 of Expenditure Budget in Budget 2015-16. (I must confess that I failed the test and did not try and sum the numbers up to derive the relevant totals.)

So, how has the gender budget allocation according to the Union Government’s Gender Budget Statement moved over time? The allocation seems to have fluctuated quite a bit around a broadly upward trend. I do not need to elaborate on the problems associated with classification of budget items for the gender budget statement. In Das and Mishra (2006), authors have pointed out these classification problems. For example, they had pointed out that the entire allocation in 2006-07 for Safdarjung Hospital, Vardaman Mahavir Medical College, and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) – all in the capital city of Delhi – had been included under Part A, that is as 100% women-specific allocations. A sense of unease comes from the lack of details as to how and why some items have been included in Part A or Part B of the Gender Budget Statement.

Furthermore, as already mentioned, changes in allocations from one year to another in the Gender Budget Statement need to be interpreted carefully because of changes in how much of what Demand for Grants have been included in the Gender Budget Statement. The figures are not comparable across time points. For instance, in 2005, the analysis included only 33 Demand for Grants, which increased to more than 50 in 2014-15. Similarly, the declining trend in recent years is due to the realignment of intergovernmental transfers from tied to untied with lower discretionary transfers, as recommended by the Fourteenth Finance Commission.

Emphasis on inputs and not on outcome

The emphasis in gender budgeting continues to be on expenditure rather than outcomes. This, however, is a problem which is not restricted to gender budgeting alone but afflicts all spheres of public finance. There needs to be much more focus on the best public finance management (PFM) practices spanning the entire budget cycle from preparation, allocation, prioritisation, execution, monitoring, and evaluation. How much do we know about the impact of say the expenditure on Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine, which is included as a 100% women-specific scheme, on women? I must add though that while a part of the responsibility for such benefit-incidence analysis lies with the government, the academics and researchers also need to be pro-active in shedding more light on these issues.

Lack of both ex ante and ex post analysis of schemes

Careful analysis needs to be done both before launching a scheme or including it under gender budgeting as well as after its implementation. We may call these two ex-ante and ex-post analysis. Mostly, we launch schemes without adequate preparation and analysis – on the basis of guesses – perhaps ‘informed’ guesses. Furthermore, we often do not follow up with the evaluation of a scheme after it has been implemented. In the absence of such analyses, we may not only spend our scarce resources on items that do not deliver the desired results, but also be unaware of this reality and persist with the mistake for longer than necessary. Let us not forget that a gender budget statement is usually described as a gender-specific accountability document produced to show what the government’s programmes and budgets are achieving with respect to gender equality, not how much the government is spending on the belief that such spending must be helping women. Perhaps, time is opportune for launching a gender audit of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan , Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), and Ayushman Bharat .

Before concluding let me point out that I have not touched upon two issues relating to the taxation and revenue side of gender budgeting and gender empowerment. It is because I do not think they are on top of the priority list for achieving gender equality. Our taxation system is still cluttered with a lot of exemption and concessional treatments for specific goods and assesses. I do not think giving, for instance, a well-off woman, an exemption from or a concessional rate of property tax on the house that she owns, in preference over her poorer second cousin who happens to be a male, will help the cause of gender development.

On gender empowerment, I am a strong believer in increasing the participation of women in participatory democracy and in the executive branch. At the same time, I also believe that such empowerment has to deal with the tough issue of bringing up the bottom end of the distribution even among our women, not the creamy layer. On this, which I know is a controversial topic, let me end with a story from Pakistan.

Benazir Bhutto became the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, but that did not reflect the true state of women’s participation in elections in Pakistan. Women’s turnout in Pakistan was one of the lowest in the world. In some villages, like Dhurnal in Punjab of Pakistan, no woman had ever voted until the general elections of 2018 . Pakistan had to promulgate a law in 2017 to announce that a constituency’s vote count would be nullified if the female voter turnout did not reach 10%.

  • Under Ujjwala Yojana , LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) stove and refill were available on credit, with the loan repaid by the oil marketing company deducting the subsidy on LPG cylinder as equated monthly instalments. The other associated scheme Pratyaksh Hanstantarit Scheme or PAHAL simplified the availability of LPG cylinders through a direct benefit transfer (DBT) of subsidy scheme.
  • The ratio was 941 in 1961, 930 in 1971, 934 in 1981, 927 in 1991, 933 in 2001, and 943 in 2011.
  • The male literacy rates were 27.2 in 1951, 40.4 in 1961, 46.0 in 1971, 56.4 in 1981, 64.1 in 1991, 75.3 in 2001, and 82.1 in 2011. The corresponding rates for females were 8.9, 15.4, 22.0, 29.8, 39.3, 53.7, and 65.5.
  • The countries were Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Slovenia, Finland, Iceland, South Korea, Luxembourg, Singapore, Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, Canada, and Israel.
  • “This practice of producing the Women’s Budget Statement abruptly ceased in 2014, though the reasons why are unclear” – Budlender (2015), quoted in Chakraborty (2016).
  • IMF (2017) provides an overview.
  • In 2009, changes to Austria’s Constitution required gender budgeting at all levels of government.
  • The National Finance Act, legislated in 2006, requires submission of gender budgets and gender balance reports from the 2010 fiscal year onward.
  • Since 2010, the annual Budget Law has an annex on equality between women and men in fiscal policies and gender-disaggregated amounts allocated in the budget.
  • The Municipality of Santo Andre in 1997-2000 began to develop a budget using racial and gender analysis (UNIFEM (2008), quoted in Fragoso and Enríquez (2016) ).
  • The NIPFP diagnoses the existing degree of gender inequality in India through sex disaggregation of relevant macro data, quantification of existing non-Systems of National Accounts unpaid care economy work of women, econometric investigation of the link between public expenditures and gender development, assessment of budgetary policies through a gender lens, and identification of policy alternatives to build in a gender-sensitive national budgeting process (Lahiri et al . 2002).
  • See United Nations Development Programme (2010) (p. 108). Again I had the good fortune of being associated with this Expert Committee on Classification of Budgetary Transactions.

Further Reading

  • Budlender, D (2015), ‘Budget Call Circulars and Gender Budget Statements: A Review’, UN Women, New Delhi.
  • Chakraborty, L (2016), ‘Asia: A Survey of Gender Budgeting Efforts’, IMF Working Paper, WP/16/150.
  • Das, Subrat and Yamini Mishra (2006), “Gender Budget Statement”, Economic and Political Weekly , 29 July 2006.
  • Fragoso LP and CR Enríquez (2016), ' Western Hemisphere: A Survey of Gender Budgeting Efforts', IMF Working Paper , WP/16/153, July 2016.
  • International Monetary Fund (2017), ‘ Gender Budgeting in G7 Countries ’, Policy Papers.
  • Lahiri, A, L Chakraborty and PN Bhattacharyya (2000), ‘India: Gender Budgeting’, NIPFP, New Delhi.
  • Lahiri, A, L Chakraborty and PN Bhattacharyya (2001), ‘Gender Diagnosis and Budgeting in India’, NIPFP, New Delhi.
  • Lahiri, A, L Chakraborty and PN Bhattacharyya, “Gender Budgeting in India,” Follow the Money Series, UNIFEM, New York, 2002.
  • OECD (2017), “ Gender budgeting in OECD countries ”, OECD Journal on Budgeting, Volume 2016/3.
  • Phipps, Shelley A and Peter S Burton (1998), “What's Mine Is Yours? The Influence of Male and Female Incomes on Patterns of Household Expenditure”, Economica , 65(260):599-613.
  • United Nations Development Programme (2010), ' Asia Pacific Human Development Report 2010: Power, Voice and Rights. A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific ', Mcmillan India.
  • UNIFEM (2008), 'Aportes a los Presupuestos Sensibles al Género. Experiencias de Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Uruguay (Contributions to Gender Responsive Budgets Experiences of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay)', Cuadernos de Diálogos, Brazil, p. 50.

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research paper on gender budgeting in india

The Status of Gender Budgeting in India

Ria Kasliwal

10 February 2023

The blog was initially published on 23 December 2021 and has been updated with Budget 2023 data.

In 2005 , India started releasing a gender budget along with its Union budget. The gender budget is an exercise that applies a gendered-lens to the allocation and tracking of public funds. The focus is on improving women’s welfare through government policies [1] . But a look at data reveals that, even now, the gender budgeting exercise faces issues, and that gender budgets are still away from realising this objective.

Before considering the gender budgeting exercise, it is first important to look at budget allocations. For FY 2023-24, the total allocation for Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) increased by a mere 2 per cent from the Revised Estimates (RE) of FY 2022-23.

The allocation to gender budgets in India as a proportion of the total Union budget has remained constant since its inception, ranging from around 3 to 6 per cent of the Union budget [2] . For FY 2023-24, the total allocation for Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) increased by a mere 2 per cent from the Revised Estimates (RE) [a] of FY 2022-23. In recent years, the actual allocation to gender budget as a proportion of the union budget peaked in the pandemic in FY 2021-22. However, it has been falling since then. In FY 2022-23, the RE of gender budget accounted for 5.2 per cent of the Union Budget. For FY 2023-24, the Budget Estimate (BE) [b] of the Gender Budget accounts for just 5 per cent of the total Union Budget.

Figure 1: Allocation to Gender Budget as a Proportion of the Union Budget Fell From 5.2% (2022-23) to 5% (2023-24)

ALLOCATION TO GENDER BUDGET AS A PROPORTION OF THE UNION BUDGET FELL FROM 5.2% IN 2022-23 TO 5% IN 2023-24

Skewed Composition

The gender budget in India comprises two parts: Part A encompasses schemes that allot 100 per cent of the funds for women (such as maternity benefits). Part B consists of schemes that allocate at least 30 per cent of funds for women (such as the Mid-Day Meal scheme). Since its initiation, the gender budget has increasingly been dominated by Part B [3] .  

As seen in Figure 2, in FY 2005-06, Part A and Part B accounted for over 34 per cent and 65 per cent of the GRB. Since its inception however, the Gender Budget is skewed by allocations in Part B, with Part B occupying 85 per cent of the gender budget in the pandemic in FY 2020-21.

In FY 2021-22, the share of Part A in the total Gender Budget peaked at 46 per cent, for the first time. However, since, it has been falling. In FY 2022-23, Part A accounted for 41 per cent of the gender budget while Part B accounted for 59 per cent. In FY 2023-24, however, Part A, went further down to 39 per cent, while Part B increased to about 61 per cent of India’s gender-responsive budget. This implies wholly-women-specific schemes do not form the majority of the gender budget as of now.

Figure 2: Allocations to Part A and Part B as a Proportion of Gender Budget

SHARE OF PART A IN THE TOTAL GENDER BUDGET FELL TO 39% IN 2023-24

Key Concerns

It is also important to note some systemic issues on gender budgeting in India. The first is the basis on which schemes are included or excluded. 

Firstly, the gender budget does not take into account some of the major schemes that benefit women. For instance, the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) aims to provide household tap connections to all rural households by 2024. Tap water can particularly improve women’s [c] quality of life because it is mostly women and girls who gather water in households that do not have regular water access [4] . Yet, none of the allocations in the JJM have been reported in the gender budget [5] .  

The present segregation into parts A (100 per cent) and B (30 to 99 per cent) also means that schemes that earmark less than 30 per cent of their funds for women are excluded from the gender budget. The way schemes allocate at least 30 per cent of their funds for women also seems unclear. 

For instance, the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) accounted for 24 per cent of the gender budget in 2023-24 and was placed in Part A of the GRB because the scheme encourages houses to be owned by women and thereby might benefit women. On the other hand, only 27 per cent of the funds allocated under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) accounted for Part B of the GRB, despite women being 55 per cent of MGNREGS workers [6] .  

In terms of methodology, lack of a transparent mechanism that details weights attributable to various schemes for furthering gender equality [7] could be one explanation for this paradoxical allocation, wherein a scheme that evidentially targets and benefits women (MGNREGS) is placed in Part B, while gender-neutral scheme, is placed in Part A.

The gender budgeting exercise thus does not seem to fully take into account prevailing gender dimensions as they play out in society, and leaves space for errors. Additionally, the lack of gender-segregated data leaves a gaping hole for an effective GRB. Reporting allocations in Part B, specifically, becomes difficult in the absence of such data [8] . This is why some scholars have pointed out that the entire process has become an aggregation exercise [9] more than a potent tool.

Ria Kasliwal is a Research Associate at the Accountability Initiative.

References :

[1] Gender Budget, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India.

[2] Gender Budget, Union Expenditure Profile for FY 2005-06 to FY 2023-24.

[3] Gender Budget, Union Expenditure Profile for FY 2005-06 to FY 2023-24.

[4] Press Release on Jal Jeevan Mission: during lockdown by Ministry of Jal Shakti dated 2 July 2020.

[5] Scheme Guideline on Jal Jeevan Mission by Ministry of Jal Shakti, 2010.

[6] Gender Budget, Union Expenditure Profile for FY 2021-22.

[7] Gender Responsive Budgeting in India: What Has Gone Wrong, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 47, No 17, 2012.

[8] Recognizing Gender Biases, Rethinking Budgets, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, 2012.

[9] Union Budget 2020–21: A Critical Analysis from the Gender Perspective, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 55, Issue No. 16, 2020.

[a] Revised Estimates (RE) are estimates of projected amounts of government receipts and expenditure until the end of the financial year.

[b] Budget Estimates (BE) are budget allocations announced at the beginning of each financial year.

[c] This was stated in scheme guideline  document  as well as  press releases .

Also Read: Under-prioritisation of Women’s Safety in the Union Budget?

2 thoughts on “The Status of Gender Budgeting in India”

  • Pingback: Gender Budgeting: Status, Benefits and Challenges - Explained, pointwise-ForumIAS Blog

I came looking to understand if the Budget announcement of opening 157 Nursing Colleges – where approx 80% of staff and students will be women was included in your analysis . Hope to hear more about it in the future. Concerned that 10 Crore non-recurring Budget per CON sounds too little esp if hostels and classes need to be constructed.

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What Is Gender Budgeting?

Gender budgeting is the process that can tackle concerns such as sexism, abuse, humiliation, assault, abandonment, and manipulation, among others. It commences with the budget and incorporates a range of different approaches to the entire policy process. Gender budgeting is a crucial instrument for achieving gender integration and assuring that progress benefits males and females equally.

It principally aids in the minimisation of gender disparities. Gender inequalities persist in modern society, reflecting in areas such as entrepreneurship potential, labour force participation rate, income, literacy, survival rates, administration, and senior management employee involvement.

Aspirants can learn about the key highlights of Union Budget 2022-23 at the linked article.

Overview of Gender Budgeting

The article’s premise is that the cost estimate is more than just an annual accounting of revenue and costs. It is a mechanism for the institution to fulfill its responsibilities and, therefore, a political expression of its resource allocation priorities. Gender budgeting schemes are ultimately politicized declarations as well as fiscal policy mechanisms.

Gender-sensitive budgeting analyzes how budgets address the concerns of females and males, regardless of whether they are youngsters, adolescents, or grownups. Analysis on Gender budgeting is crucial for revealing violence against women and releasing resources between two groups. This sort of research aids in determining alternatives to gender discrimination by emphasising the independence demoralisation of two separate groups: men and women. Gender budgeting investigated the concept of gender on all laws and projects, not just female appropriations or policies.

Gender Budgeting UPSC includes the following topics:

  • Policies, organizations, and gender-sensitive initiatives.
  • Gender-based utilization of resources.
  • From a gender perspective, investment and delivery of public services are monitored.
  • Evaluating and assessing the impact of initiatives and schemes on women.
  • Preventative step to address gender imbalances in the future.

Current Issue

Gender Budgeting in India accounted for 4.8 percent of the total financial outlay in 2005-06, but its share of the budget has remained relatively constant throughout time, maintaining around 5%. The Gender Budget totaled Rs 1,43,462 crore in the previous fiscal year or 4.72%.

The government’s gender-sensitive response to COVID caused a spike in real expenditure to Rs 2,07,261 crore.

Women continue to be disproportionately affected by the post-pandemic circumstances. However, the Gender Budget as a fraction of the Union Budget has plummeted to 4.4 percent in 2021-22, which is Rs 1,53,326 in relative terms.

As per statistical information from the 75th National Sample Survey (NSS) undertaken in 2017-18, 12.8% disclosed being allowed to navigate a computer compared with 20 per cent of males, and 14.9% disclosed being able to access the internet vs that of 25 per cent of males. In India, compared to 71% of men possessing mobile phones or digital devices, only 38% of women do. Interestingly, we see that even though a household owns a smart device and has internet service, the male participants are more likely to use the systems for education or work.

Also, IAS aspirants can refer to the following links:

Gender Budgeting – Context with India

Several foreign consultations have been coordinated, with the opportunity to revolutionize the reality of women’s lives. Several of these meetings have led the Government of India to pledge to act immediately to improve the condition of Gender Budgeting In India. Some of these commitments are:

  • The Symposium on the Abolishment of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ( CEDAW ), India approved in 1980 and enacted on July 9, 1993.
  • The Protocol on the Child’s Rights entered into force in 1990, and India enacted it in 1992.

India’s Gender Budgeting Scheme is divided into two parts, A and B, respectively. Part A of the Gender Budget encompasses schemes with 100% redistribution for women, such as the widow provident fund, girls’ accommodation scheme, and pregnancy benefit scheme, and Part B includes methods with at least 30% allocation for women, such as the mid-day meals program, rural alternative livelihood mission, and biogas initiative.

The deployment of GRB by the Central and state governments was inarguably a momentous occasion to strive for gender equality. Still, it is also favourable for the framework to evolve in parallel with the advancement of feminist scholars.

Gender Budget 2022

Since 2005-06, India has just come out with its 17 th Gender Budget, which earmarks initiatives and/or expenditures to promote gender equality and eradicate gender inequality. Overall, the gender budget has increased in terms of numbers to 1,71,006.47 crores (2022-23 Budget Estimates1), contributing 4.3 percent of the entire spending plan.

According to an analysis by the All India Democratic Women’s Association, the Gender Budget has declined from 0.71 percent of the Gross domestic product in the fiscal years for 2021-22 to 0.66 percent in the prediction for 2022-2023.

Way Forward

Although the Indian government’s experience with gender budgeting is widely used as a frame of reference for other gender budgetary control initiatives, there seems to be a visible framework gap between what was originally intended and what has been accomplished under the false pretence of gender budgeting.

However, the gender budgeting scheme is not merely intellectual. It must be strongly implemented on a theoretical level. Today, substantial improvements can be seen in women’s empowerment, reproductive freedom, general wellbeing, and non – discrimination, but much more remains to be improved.

For the best preparation strategy for competitive exams candidates can visit the linked article and get detailed study material and preparation tips to excel in the examination.

To get the latest exam updates, study material and preparation tips, visit BYJU’S.

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Gender Budgeting in India

Profile image of Equity Foundation

A paper presented by Dr. Vibhuti Patel at a National Workshop on Gender Budget organised by Equity Foundation supported by Planning Commission of India

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The premise of development paradigm is mainstreaming where the role of state is crucial. Women are at the core to the agenda of mainstreaming and thus various efforts have been initiated for empowering them. Among those various steps, gender budgeting emerges as a naïve step for mainstreaming. Gender budgeting is a methodological intervention to mainstream women within the macroeconomics. India has adopted gender budgeting and institutionalized the process (at the union level) since 2005-06. Though, gender budgeting calls for looking both at qualitative and quantitative aspect but India has categorically focused on the quantitative aspect. But the present work argues that despite focusing on the quantitative aspect, the trends of gender budgeting are disturbing to note. The trends of some of the major schemes under Ministry of Women and Child Development are analysed which reveals that the share of allocation has increased if see them in vacuum but if we see in comparison to the overall budgetary allocations and ministries total allocation, their share has decreased. Noting this irony is important as it shows the political commitment of the state.

research paper on gender budgeting in india

Jaipuria International Journal of Management Research

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Because it combines gender views and takes into account concerns connected to gender at all levels and phases of development, planning, policy making, programs, and delivery methods, gender budgeting has been widely hailed as a critical instrument for advancing women's empowerment. Additionally, it effectively addresses gender disparities in budget allocations, particularly in areas that are reflective of the general public, such as education, health, and nutrition. Gender budgeting strives to increase access to resources while also ensuring that government resources are distributed fairly across all citizens and groups. As a result, gender budgeting opens up new possibilities for women empowerment. Gender budgeting is becoming increasingly important and necessary in the contemporary Indian setting, where women were traditionally isolated, underestimated, and marginalized for a variety of reasons. Despite the fact that the Indian government's experience with gender budgeting is frequently cited as a model for other gender budgeting efforts, there seems to be a clear disparity between what was envisioned and what has been achieved under the banner of gender budgeting in the country. This study makes use of the secondary data collected from the Government of India's gender budgeting statements and the Ministry of Women and Child Development's annual publications. The data were analyzed using various tools for arriving at broad findings of this study. There seems to be a clear disparity between what was envisioned and what has been achieved under the banner of gender budgeting in the country. There is an urgent need for particular policy involvement from the government in order to address the issue of violence against women and to promote gender equality.

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Gender budgeting is also acknowledged as Gender Budgets, Women's Budgets, Gender Sensitive Budgets, Gender Responsive Budgets. It provides base to policymakers and governments to solve the all socioeconomic problems of women by allocating separate allocation under budgets. The gender budgeting funds are two types of in government schemes-First, in which 100% provision for women and second, with the allocations of at least 30% to pro-women specific. The total share for the

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Budget is an important tool in the hands of state for affirmative action for improvement of gender relations through reduction of gender gap in the development process. It can help to reduce economic inequalities as well as gender inequalities. Hence, the budgetary policies need to keep into consideration the gender dynamics operating in the economy and in the civil society. There is a need to highlight participatory approaches, bottom up budget, child budget, green budgeting, local and global implications of pro-poor and pro-women budgeting and inter-linkages between gender-sensitive budgeting and women’s empowerment. It is good economic sense to make national budgets gender-sensitive, as this will enable more effective targeting of government expenditure to women specific activities and reduce inequitable consequences of previous fiscal policies. The Gender Budget Initiative is a policy framework, methodology and set of tools to assist governments to integrate a gender perspective into the budget as the main national plan of public expenditure. It also aims to facilitate attention to gender analysis in review of macroeconomic performance, ministerial budget preparations, parliamentary debate and mainstream media coverage. Budget impacts women’s lives in several ways. It directly promotes women’s development through allocation of budgetary funds for women’s programmes or reduces opportunities for empowerment of women through budgetary cuts. Keywords: Financial commitments, policy,

Budget is an important tool in the hands of state for affirmative action for improvement of gender relations through reduction of gender gap in the development process. It can help to reduce economic inequalities, between men and women as well as between the rich and the poor Hence, the budgetary policies need to keep into considerations the gender dynamics operating in the economy and in the civil society. There is a need to highlight participatory approaches bottom up budget, child budget, green budgeting, local and global implications of pro-poor and pro-women budgeting and inter-linkages between gender-sensitive budgeting and women’s empowerment. Understanding the relationship between macroeconomic policies and the Union Budget, state budgets and the local self government institutions in the context of economic reforms and globalisation is a MUST as it has influenced women’s lives in several ways. It is good economic sense to make national budgets gender-sensitive, as this will enable more effective targeting of government expenditure to women specific activities and reduce inequitable consequences of previous fiscal policies. The Gender Budget Initiative is a policy framework, methodology and set of tools to assist governments to integrate a gender perspective into the budget as the main national plan of public expenditure. It also aims to facilitate attention to gender analysis in review of macroeconomic performance, ministerial budget preparations, parliamentary debate and mainstream media coverage. Budget impacts women’s lives in several ways. It directly promotes women’s development through allocation of budgetary funds for women’s programmes or reduces opportunities for empowerment of women through budgetary cuts.

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The discourse on analysing public expenditure in India from the gender perspective is usually traced back to the Report of the Committee on the Status of Women (titled “Towards Equality”) brought out by the Government of India in 1974. This Report pointed out that the development trajectory of the country had adversely affected a large section of women and created new imbalances and disparities. The consciousness generated by this Report led to changes in policies towards development of women in the Fifth Five Year Plan. However, it was only in the Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-90) that specific attention was paid to allocations for programmes/ schemes which directly benefited women. The adoption of Women’s Component Plan (WCP) is also traced back to the Seventh Plan which witnessed the initiation of a mechanism for identifying and monitoring schemes that extended benefits directly to women. In 1986, the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD), under the Central Government’s...

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This paper attempts to examine how India can deepen its gender responsive budgeting (GRB) process by reshaping the policies related to planning and budgeting through a gendered lens so as to effectively translate them into better gender development.

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MGNREGA scheme led to decline in gender wage gap in rural India: ILO

The paper also noted that the gap in rural wages between formal salaried workers and casual workers also decreased due to the employment guarantee scheme.

mgnrega, workers, labour, poverty, poor, villages

Meanwhile, the ILO also notes that the results varied across the national territory and its potential to transform the lives of rural populations depended on its implementation at the field level

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Gender budgeting in india: what does it mean and how it impacts policy, supreme court launches handbook to combat gender stereotypes in judgements, pay gap persists even in sectors with large women workforce, shows data, is mgnrega work demand real sign of distress or problem lies elsewhere, mgnregs demand continues to be robust even as funds dip, shows data, india resumes buying russian sokol oil after 2-month hiatus: report, india's economic growth may exceed 6% for rest of the decade: goldman sachs, national highway projects continue to ride in first gear, shows data, msp of wheat and paddy: how the two states punjab and haryana fared, reserve bank of india restrains commercial card payments by a network.

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  1. PDF The Influence of Gender Budgeting in Indian States on Gender ...

    Janet G. Stotsky and Asad Zaman Authorized for distribution by Prakash Loungani and Catherine Pattillo November 2016 Abstract This study investigates the effect of gender budgeting in India on gender inequality and fiscal spending.

  2. Gender Budgeting in India:Some Recent Evidence

    Gender Budgeting in India:Some Recent Evidence Authors: Pradeep Panda Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) Abstract and Figures

  3. GENDER BUDGETING IN INDIA: AN IMPACT ANALYSIS

    This paper looks at (a) the trends in gender budgeting, which is the nodal responsibility of Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) department in India, (b) the plight of Anganwadi...

  4. (PDF) Gender Budgeting in India

    Gender Budgeting in India Authors: Vibhuti Patel Tata Institute of Social Sciences Abstract Budget is an important tool in the hands of state for affirmative action for improvement of gender...

  5. A Study of Gender Budgeting in India

    First Online: 11 June 2023 Part of the Contributions to Environmental Sciences & Innovative Business Technology book series (CESIBT) Abstract The main idea behind the implementation of Gender Budgeting has been to narrow the gap between men and women and also to encourage women to recognise their ability to break the barriers.

  6. Analysis of Gender Budgeting in India

    First Online: 20 April 2022 407 Accesses Abstract Women in India are a marginalized community. They also derive fewer benefits compared to men from certain policies and programme. One way to bridge the gender gap is through policies and programmes by the government, and this is done through the budget.

  7. The Influence of Gender Budgeting in Indian States on Gender ...

    Gender budgeting is an approach to budgeting in which governments use fiscal policies and administration to address gender inequality and women's advancement. There is little quantitative study of its impact. Indian states offer a relatively unique framework for assessing the effect of gender budgeting.

  8. Game changer or accounting practice? Gender responsive budgeting in India

    Since India's first gender budget statement was published in 2005/06, the country's gender budget increased more than eight-fold in 2018/19. Using quantitative and qualitative data, this article highlights several procedural issues and 'grey' areas that require the attention of policy-makers. The over-arching message of the study is ...

  9. PDF Gender Responsive Budgeting, as Fiscal Innovation: Evidence from India

    and Policy has pioneered research related to gender budgeting in India besides getting it institutionalised within the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. ... process of GRB began in the year 2000-01 in India. This paper examines the contributions of these major players to the four distinct components of GRB innovation ...

  10. PDF Gender-Responsive Budgeting in India, Bangladesh and Rwanda: A ...

    ORF OCCASIONAL PAPER # 260 JuLY 2020 5 Gender-Responsive Budgeting in India, Bangladesh and Rwanda: A Comparison abstract Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is a targeted fiscal instrument that several developing countries have cemented into their growth plans. GRB is used to ensure that policy prescriptions to alleviate

  11. The Influence of Gender Budgeting in Indian States on Gender ...

    This study investigates the effect of gender budgeting in India on gender inequality and fiscal spending. Gender budgeting is an approach to budgeting in which governments use fiscal policies and administration to address gender inequality and women's advancement. There is little quantitative study of its impact.

  12. An overview of gender responsive budgeting in India

    (DOI: 10.18231/J.JMRA.2020.039) Gender budgeting has been well-acclaimed as a key tool for empowering women as it incorporates gender perspectives, and considers issues related to gender at all levels and phases of development, planning, policy making, programmes, and delivery mechanisms. Additionally, it effectively addresses gender gaps in budget allocations, especially in representative ...

  13. Fifteen years of gender budgeting in India: A Retrospective

    Source: Chakraborty (2016). In 2000, the Government of India commissioned the NIPFP to undertake a comprehensive study on gender budgeting (Lahiri et al. 2000).This study, with which both Prof. Lekha Chakraborty and I had the privilege of being associated with, analysed the 'Demand for Grants' submitted by all the ministries and departments of central government.

  14. The Status of Gender Budgeting in India

    Skewed Composition The gender budget in India comprises two parts: Part A encompasses schemes that allot 100 per cent of the funds for women (such as maternity benefits). Part B consists of schemes that allocate at least 30 per cent of funds for women (such as the Mid-Day Meal scheme).

  15. GENDER BUDGETING IN INDIA: SOME RECENT EVIDENCE

    Jan 2008 Rhonda Sharp Diane Elson View Show abstract Gender Budgeting: Fiscal Context and Current Outcomes Article Jan 2016 Janet G. Stotsky View The Influence of Gender Budgeting in Indian...

  16. Gender responsive budgeting in India: Trends and Analysis

    Gender based violence is quite common in almost all the developing countries. Religion, customs, age-old prejudices, etc. have put Indian women in a subservient and exploitable position in many domains of life. Low rates of participation in education, lack of economic independence, value biases operating against them, etc., have resulted in the women being dependent on men folk and other ...

  17. PDF Gender Budgeting and Women Empowerment

    Kumar (2019) studied the impact of gender budgeting on women empowerment. The main purpose of the study is to analyze the trend in gender budget over the periods. The study found that lack of finance ,political will, accounting is the main hindrances in this process. The study suggested that financial literacy may brings gender equality in India.

  18. Gender Responsive Budgeting in India Time to Ask Questions

    This paper attempts to examine how India can deepen its gender responsive budgeting (GRB) process by reshaping the policies related to planning and budgeting through a gendered lens so as to effectively translate them into better gender development. Download Free PDF

  19. Gender Responsive Budgeting in India: What Has Gone Wrong?

    An analysis of 'Gender Responsive Budgeting' in India. 2017 •. Kaavya Singh. This paper attempts to examine how India can deepen its gender responsive budgeting (GRB) process by reshaping the policies related to planning and budgeting through a gendered lens so as to effectively translate them into better gender development. Download Free PDF.

  20. Does Interim Gender Budget 2024 Do Enough For A Women ...

    The gender Budget, at Rs3 lakh crore, recorded the highest annual increase over the last decade. Yet, outlays continue to be concentrated among a few ministries and departments, and immediate ...

  21. An overview of gender responsive budgeting in India

    The concept of Gender budgeting was first introduced by Australia in 1984. Gender Budgeting means special emphasis given to Women in the Budget allocation. In India the Gender Budget initiative started in 2005-2006 Budget. This paper highlighted the present position of India in the Global Gender gap index in compare to some other countries.

  22. Gender Budgeting in India

    Gender Budgeting in India accounted for 4.8 percent of the total financial outlay in 2005-06, but its share of the budget has remained relatively constant throughout time, maintaining around 5%. The Gender Budget totaled Rs 1,43,462 crore in the previous fiscal year or 4.72%. The government's gender-sensitive response to COVID caused a spike ...

  23. PDF Gender Budgeting in India: An Impact Analysis

    This paper looks at (a) the trends in gender budgeting, which is the nodal responsibility of Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) department in India, (b) the plight of Anganwadi...

  24. (PDF) Gender Budgeting in India

    Gender budgeting is a methodological intervention to mainstream women within the macroeconomics. India has adopted gender budgeting and institutionalized the process (at the union level) since 2005-06. Though, gender budgeting calls for looking both at qualitative and quantitative aspect but India has categorically focused on the quantitative ...

  25. MGNREGA scheme led to decline in gender wage gap in rural India: ILO

    The introduction and expansion of the rural employment guarantee scheme - Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) - has led to a decline in gender wage gaps and increased compliance with minimum wage regulations in rural areas, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) noted in its latest working paper that looked at employment and wage disparities between rural and ...