“At first glance, the federal budget appears to be a gender-neutral policy instrument. However, government spending and tax cuts impact men and women differently because, in general, they occupy different social and economic positions,” says Bakker, a professor of Political Science.                                                       

Tax cuts benefit men more often than women, Bakker says in a technical paper published this week by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). That is because in 2002, for example, almost 30 per cent of female tax filers in Canada had incomes below $10,000, compared to 18.4 per cent of men. The disparity in incomes also makes increased limits for Registered Retirement Savings Plans of less benefit to women than men, she points out.

Bakker calls for gender budget initiatives in the technical paper for CCPA, an organization that has issued an alternative budget to the federal government’s budget every year for the past decade.

“Gender budget initiatives are not initiatives that call for separate budgets for women,” she says. “They are ways to look at budgets and say, given the different circumstances of men and women do fiscal policies affect them differently?”

Bakker’s paper calls on the federal government to systematically review how women benefit from public sector expenditures and adjust budgets to ensure equality of access to this spending. This would help improve productivity in Canada and ensure that social needs are met, she says.

Since 1995, about sixty countries have begun to do some form of gender budgeting, ranging from South Africa to Switzerland, Bakker’s paper points out. In South Africa, for example, proposals to reconfigure land ownership were changed when it was recognized that the plan would not benefit the poorest women in the most rural parts of the country.

The United Kingdom’s general budget initiatives are probably the closest to what Canada could achieve, Bakker says. There, heads of non-governmental organizations and other women’s representatives meet with government finance officials in the very early stages of the budget process to ensure budgets will be fair to both genders.

York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city.  The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 180,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 faculties and 21 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries.  This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.

-30-

For more information, contact:
Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University, 416-736-2100 x22101 / wallsj@yorku.ca