Gender Responsive Budgeting in India: Trends and Analysis

Citation:

Dey, Joyashri and Subhabrata Dutta. 2014. “Gender Responsive Budgeting in India: Trends and Analysis.” International Journal of Social Science 3 (4): 495-509.

Authors: Joyashri Day, Subhabrata Dutta

Abstract:

The 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. Budget impacts women’s lives in several ways. It directly promotes women’s development through allocation of budgetary funds for women’s programmes and reduces opportunities for empowerment of women through budgetary cuts. Gender budget doesn’t mean a separate budget for women rather gender budget is an attempt to assess government priorities as they are reflected through the budget and examine how they impact women and men and within that, certain groups of women and men. Gender Budget doesn’t look at whether or not the same is spent on men and women but rather at what the impact of the spending is on men and women and whether or not budgets respond to the needs of both women and men adequately. Thus, Government of India has undertaken Gender budgeting initiatives contribute to ‘gender mainstreaming’ by focusing on the gender dimensions of government budgets.

Keywords: gender based violence, women empowerment, Government Programmes, gender budget

Topics: Development, Economies, Economic Inequality, Gender, Gender Budgeting, Gender Mainstreaming, Governance Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2014