What would our society be like if we created budgets that work for everyone rather than a select few? What would it be like if we considered the needs of different groups before making final decisions? Since it’s currently Women’s History Month, we want to take some time to talk about a budget technique that answers these questions by first considering the needs of women.
What is it?
This process has a variety of names, whether it be gender-responsive budgeting, gender-balanced budgeting, or simply gender budgeting, they all have the same goal. According to the United Nations, gender-responsive budgeting strives for a fair distribution of resources “by considering the unique and diverse needs of every person.” In particular, the needs of women.
UN Women, the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality, explains that even when economic models and fiscal policies are not intentionally biased, by not considering women’s needs upfront those choices are likely to have negative consequences for women.
What does it look like?
An example of the impact of gender budgeting comes from Sweden. Like most places, cities in Sweden used to handle snow clearing by focusing on the roads first and walkways second. But in 2015, as the government was analyzing their services through a gender budgeting lens, they realized this method disadvantaged women who were statistically more likely to walk or use public transportation than drive to work.
Not only did the decision to switch the order cost the cities nothing, it actually saved the government money. Their analysis found that three times as many people were injured while walking in icy conditions than driving. In addition to the health care costs associated with those injuries (Sweden has universal health care for all residents), the cities also lost out on revenue from citizens missing work. A year after the change, the Stockholm traffic department reported that single-person accidents in the snow were cut in half.
As Caroline Criado Perez explains in her book, Invisible Women, the original order was never implemented to disadvantage women directly, but it was created by men who used their own experiences to make decisions under the assumption that everyone’s experiences are the same.
How can businesses learn from this?
Although the concept of gender budgeting is aimed at governments, private businesses can also learn from this approach. For example, research studies have shown that women are more likely than men to suffer serious injuries in car crashes, in large part due to safety features not being created with women in mind. For many years, a proper female dummy for crash tests simply didn’t exist, nor was it mandatory to use one. In 2022, a group of Swedish researchers introduced a female crash dummy that represents the average woman in height and weight, marking a pivotal point for the safety of women in cars.
Similarly, when it comes to clinical trials for drugs and medical devices, women have long been excluded from participation. Medical researchers are often hesitant even to use female mice in trials, fearing fluctuating hormones may interfere with their study results. This has left so much of women’s health unexplored and led to adverse results by women who use medical devices and drugs that were designed for men.
