1^st Annual WBG ECN Conference

Gender budgeting and public policy design for gender equality

11 November 2019, University of Liverpool

You can find the slides for the speakers’ presentations below:

***Gender Budgeting Experiences in the UK: what devolution made possible***

Angela O’Hagan (Glasgow Caledonian University) – gender budgeting in Scotland

Natasha Davies (Chwarae Teg) – gender budgeting in Wales

Suzanna Nesom (Cardiff University) – Watching the neighbours: Learning from Scotland and Wales on gender budgeting

Elizabeth Law (Ulster University) – Gender budgeting in Northern Ireland: Unfulfilled Potential

***International Experiences of Gender Responsive Budgeting***

Diane Elson (WBG Commission for a Gender-Equal Economy) – gender budgeting in Australia and South Africa

Yamini Mishra (Amnesty International) – gender budgeting in the Asia-Pacific region

Firat Cengiz (University of Liverpool) – gender budgeting in the EU institutions

Leanne Wilson (Glasgow Caledonian University) – Gender Mainstreaming in Action? A Case of the Scottish Structural Funding Programme 2014-2020

***Mainstreaming gender into policymaking: processes and best practices***

Kindy Sandhu (Coventry City Council) – experience of gender mainstreaming in local policymaking

Mary-Ann Stephenson (UK Women’s Budget Group) – the importance of data for gender budgeting

Lucy Szablewska (Durham University) – The possibilities and challenges of drawing on qualitative research to inform gender budgeting               

Daniela Jenkins (King’s College London and Central St Martin’s) – Constructing gender equality in British pensions policy

Jessica Brown (London School of Economics) – Half the Economy: An Analysis of Public and Private Investments and Female Employment in Egypt

See the programme HERE.

Register for a place HERE.

Feminist economics and gender budgeting

Feminist economics recognises that women’s economic position is a product of societal structural inequalities. The discipline sheds an important light on how unpaid reproductive labour is the foundation of productive work in the labour market and is crucial for the reproduction and well-being of society at large. Feminist economics seeks to end the invisibility of unpaid labour and make sure economic and policy models adequately account for it and its value.

Economic policy, as predicated on mainstream economic models, is very often blind to how unpaid labour underpins the labour market. Societal gender norms and government policy shape the distribution of both reproductive and productive work within families and between families and society. When politicians and policymakers turn a blind eye to reproductive work the success of economic policies is compromised. Women, because they still carry out the vast majority of this invisible, unpaid and unvalued work, and women’s life trajectories are not properly accounted for in policy design and so the labour market, social security and tax systems and other societal structures are not made to fit women.

Gender budgeting, as a policy tool derived from feminist economics, is a mechanism that goes some way into addressing these miscalculations. It seeks to persuade policymakers to think about the impact spending and revenue raising decisions will have on gender inequalities and to adopt policies that will bring about equality between women and men.

REGISTER FOR A PLACE HERE.

Call for papers – now closed

The WBG 1^st Annual Early-Career Network Conference ‘Gender Budgeting and Public Policy Design for Gender Equality’ will focus on gender budgeting as a feminist economics tool to bring about change. We invite our members who are in the early stages of their research careers (students, early-career academics, civil servants, voluntary workers or third-sector researchers) and working on these and related topics to present their research on 11 November 2019 at the University of Liverpool.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words by filling this form until 30 September. We will inform participants of the decision shortly afterwards.

We have a small amount of travel bursaries to contribute to expenses of members who will be presenting.

We particularly welcome papers that focus on the impact of public policy on women, and on the economic circumstances and challenges of specific groups of women (e.g. BME, disabled, young, old, migrant, lesbian, etc).

Any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact the network coordinator Sara Reis at sara.reis@wbg.org.uk.

More details about timings and programme will be announced closer to the date.