Gender Budgeting in India
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GENDER BUDGETING IN INDIA ASHOK K LAHIRI LEKI1A S CHAKRABORTY P N BIIATTACHARYYA in association with IIIRANYA MUKIIOPADIIYAY ANURADIIA BIIASIN February 2003 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC FINANCE AND POLICY 18/2 SATSANG VIIIAR M ARC NEW DELHI CONTENTS Introduction 5 Rationale for gender budgeting Global perspective on gender budgeting Objectives of the study I i Data 12 Analytical Framework 12 Structure of Report 13 Gender Diagnosis in India 14 Health Profile 14 Education Profile 23 Overall Index of Gender Development 29 Feminization of Poverty 3! Women’s Contribution to the Economy 33 Valuing the Care Economy in India 36 Female Economic Activity Rate (FEAR) 38 Fiscal Policy and Gender Development Link: 44 An Econometric Analysis Interpreting the data 44 Specification of the Model and Economctric Results 48 Interpreting Results and Conclusion 51 Analysis of Union Budgets from Gender Perspective 52 Union Budget, 2001-02 through gender lens 53 Union Budget, 2002-03 highlights in terms of Gender Budgeting 58 Gender sensitive analysis of Expenditure Budget 63 Taxation and Subsidies 79 Conclusion and Policy Suggestions 82 References 87 Appendix 92 Intertemporal trends in Sex ratio in India: 92 A Statewise Decomposition Women Specific Programmes in Central Budget: BE to BE 93 Women Specific Programmes in Central Budget: RE to RE 95 List of Programmes designed for Women’s Welfare 97 Selected List of Public Expenditure with Pro-women Allocations 102 List of Boxes Gender Inequality as an Efficiency Issue: Empirical Evidences New Household Economics X Gender Empowerment Measure 30 Systems of National Accounts 1993 33 Feminisation U 42 Gender Development Index 47 Government Schemes Catering to Credit Facilities for Women 56 Women and Law and Order 65 List of Charts Sex Ratio in India 14 Trends in Life Expectancy at Birth in India 17 Trends in Gross Enrolment Ratio of Elementary Education in India 26 Trends in Literacy rate in India 28 Trends in Work Participation rate in India (Census Data) 40 Deviation of BE-RE in Department of Health 68 Deviation of BE-RE in Women and Child Development 68 Deviation of BE-RE in Department of Family Welfare 69 Deviation of BE-RE in Ministry of Labour 69 Deviation of BE-RE in Ministry of Tribal Affairs 70 Deviation of BE-RE in Department of Rural Development 70 Deviation of BE-RE. in Ministry of Textiles 70 Deviation of BE-RE in Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment 70 Deviation of BE-RE in Department of Agriculture and Co-operation 71 Per capita Benefit Incidence of Central Elementary Education Budget: 78 Gender Disaggregation Share of food subsidies in total subsidies in India 7 9 Trends in food subsidies in India 81 List of Tables Sex ratio (0-6) in India 16 Global Comparison of Selected Health Indicators for Females 17 Mortality rates among children: Gender Differentials 19 Nutritional Status: Gender Disaggregation 20 Statewise Decomposition of Infant Mortality Rate: Gender Differentials n Global Comparison of Selected Educational Indicators 24 Distribution of Female Enrolment in T otal Enrolment in India 25 Trends in Gross Enrolment Ratio in India 25 Statewise Decomposition of Gross Enrolment Ratio in India 26 Trends in Drop-out Rate in India 27 Statewise Decomposition of Literacy Rate: Gender Differentials 28 India's Global Position on Human and Gender Development 30 Proportion of Population in BPL Households in India 31 Time Allocation by women and men: 35 Selected Industrial and Developing Countries Time Allocation by women and men, Selected States of India 36 Value of Activity in Care Economy as compared to SDP 37 Global Comparison of Economic Activity Rate 38 India: Work Participation Rate according to NSSO 39 19. India: Sectoral Profile of’Female Work Participation 40 20. India: Distribution ol'Femalc Work Participation 41 by Status of Employment 21. India: Age-specific Work Participation Rate 42 22. India: Gender Differences in Wage Rates 43 23. Gender Development Index 45 24. Public Expenditure on Health as a percent of GDP 46 25. Public Expenditure on Education as a per cent of GDP 46 26. Relation between Per-capita Public Expenditure on 49 Education and on Health 27. Effect of Per-capita Combined Public Expenditure on 50 Education and Health on GDI 28. Effect of Per-capita Combined Public Expenditure on 51 Education and Health on GDI (Semi-log model) 29 Distribution of Plan Allocation in DWCD among children and women 58 30. Scheme-wise Decomposition of Plan Allocation for 59 Child Welfare Programmes 31. Scheme-wise Decomposition of 33 percent increase in 60 Plan allocation in DWCD 32. Categorization of Specifically Targeted Expenditure on 66 Women in Union Budget, 2002-03. 33. RE/BE Ratio of Women specific programmes in India 67 34, Specifically targeted programmes for women: 72 Share in total expenditure of various Ministries/’ Departments 35. Public Expenditure with Pro-women Allocations 74 36. RE/BE Ratio of public expenditure with pro-women allocation 75 37. Selected Public Expenditure with Pro-women Allocations 76 38. India: Per Capita Benefit Incidcnce of Central Elementary 78 Education Budget for Women Chapter 1 Introduction Prima facie, budget appears to be gender-neutral. Public expenditure and revenue are not intrinsically gendered. But, gender neutrality should not allow the budgetary policies to ignore gender specific needs. Budgetary policies can have differential impacts on men and women because of the systemic differences between the sexes in relation to the economy. A gender-sensitive budget aims at examining budgetary resource allocations through a gender lens. It is not a separate budget for women; rather it is a dissection of the government budget to establish its gender-specific impact and to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments. It also examines the gendered incidence of budgetary policies for effective targeting of public spending and offsetting any undesirable gcndcr-specific consequences of previous budgetary measures1. Gender budgeting stress reprioritization rather than an increase in overall public expenditure and in particular, the reorientation of programmes within sectors rather than changcs in the overall amounts allocated to particular scctors2. Moreover, one of the key thrusts of a gender-sensitive budget is to ensure a greater visibility of the care economy'' in fiscal policy measures and its inclusion in a system of satellite accounts into the National Accounts System. In other words, gender budgeting manifests a conspicuous gender lens to budgetary resource allocation; with a greater visibility of women’s unpaid work and its inclusion in a system of satellite accounts into the National Accounts System. 1.1 Rationale for Gender Budgeting Existing gendcr-ncutrality of macroindicators ignores the fccdback mechanism between gcndcr-rclations and macrocconomic policy. The assumption of labour force exogeneity in the treatment of the carc economy in the prevalent macrocconomic policy making is dubious. Integrating gender perspective into macrocconomic policy has dual dimensions: an equality dimension and an efficiency dimension. In the context of growing recognition that problems of inequality can not be resolved by the trickle down effects of macrocconomic policies, the conccms of gcnder-inequality needs to be built in to the macrocconomic policy framework. Apart from the basic principle of promoting equality among citizens, gender equality can benefit the economy through efficiency gains. From the efficiency consideration, what is important is the social rate of return of investment in women, and in eases, this can be greater than the corresponding rate for men. There is a growing awareness that gender inequality is inefficient and costly to development. Empirical literature draws attention to these efficiency dimensions of integrating gender perspective into macrocconomic policies (Box 1). for example, the striking good mother thesis noted that women tend to have a higher marginal propensity 1 Elson (1999) 2 Esim (2000) 3 The care economy represents domestic (reproductive) work together with voluntary community work. to spend than men on goods that enhance the capabilities of children4. These empirical evidences suggested that the likelihood of children being enrolled in school goes up with their mother’s educational level, and mother’s extra incomc has more positive impact on household investments in nutrition, health and education of children than extra incomc accruing to fathers. Also, literature on gender inequality in labour markets shows that eliminating gender discrimination in occupation and wages could increase not onlv women’s incomc, but also national incomc. Men and women frequently have different priorities for budgetary policies and are affected differently by most of these policies due to the gender differentials in the constraints, options, incentives and needs. Men and women face different constraints, assume different socially determined responsibilities and consequently make different social preferences. Legacies of adverse intra-household gender relations inhibit women from playing their rightful role, contributing to the economy, and getting their due share of the economic benefits in many countries, particularly developing ones. Women therefore are affected by and respond to the budgetary policies differently from men. Disaggregation by gender is vital because there arc systemic differences between men and women in relation to the cconomy5. The existing gender-neutral budgets ignore the gender specific impacts