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Gender Budgeting and Pay Equity. The direct way
to equal sharing of responsibilities
Dr. Brigitte Schnegg University of Bern,
Switzerland
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New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Gender Budget
To talk about Gender Budgets means to talk about
gender equality in terms of money.
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Gender Budget
anyone genuinely interested in strengthening
womens rights and promoting gender equality must
be prepared to take a close look at finance and
public spending in order to shed some light on
the question of how much of it goes to women and
girls, and how much to men and boys. What real
impact does the income and expenditure of the
State have on gender equality and how do changes
in spending policy affect the distribution of
paid and unpaid work? Are men and women equally
affected or is there a difference? Micheline
Calmy Rey, Foreign Minister of Switzerland
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Gender Budget
2002 and 2003 the Swiss Canton of Basel has
carried out a detailed and innovative gender
budget analysis exploring state expenditure and
state revenues (taxes and public charges).
Example
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Gender Budget
Up to the age of 75, state benefits per female
inhabitant are lower than those per male
inhabitant From the age of 75 onwards per capita
expenditure increases considerably more strongly
for women than for men
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Gender Budget
Contrary to expectations average health costs in
the age of 75 are not higher for the female
population than for the male population Higher
state benefits for women 75 are due to welfare
expenses as a consequence of lacking care
provisioning at home, women stay at nursing homes
more frequently.
Explanations
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Pay Equity
Its not fair. Women doing the same job Im
doing in this office are being paid more than I
am.
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Pay Equity
1868 equal access to the labor market equal
pay for equal work
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Pay Equity

• Women compared to men earn less because of
  unequal positions
• underrepresented in leading management
  positions
• overrepresented in low income sectors
• of lower education and less professional
  qualification
• - of less job-experience

New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Pay Equity

• Women compared to men earn less because of gender
  discrimination
• unequal classification of jobs in gender-
  segregated labour market
• unequal evaluation of professional performance
  of men and women
• unequal pay for equal work no further
  explanation

New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Equal Responsibility in Care Giving

Care belongs to the fundamental needs of human
beings and is crucial for human well-being.
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Equal Responsibility in Care Giving
Its importance and its value are
underestimated ... because care is - largely
done as unpaid work - largely done by women
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Equal Responsibility in Care Giving

• A Study on The Political and Social Economy of
  Care carried out for UNRISD at the
  Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies of
  University of Berne by Mascha Madörin and Nadja
  Baghdadi gives in care economy data for
  Switzerland.
• The results will be accessible in a few months
  on the UNRISD website
• http//www.unrisd.org

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Equal Responsibility in Care Giving
Facts and Figures on Care (Data from
Switzerland) Value of unpaid care work
corresponds to 64 of GDP Volume of unpaid
work outnumbers volume of paid work by 20
Men are doing 2/3 of paid work, Women 2/3 of
the unpaid work Division of labour between men
and women also in unpaid work Very high
overall workload for households with children
Increased Gender imbalance between paid an
unpaid work in households with children
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Conclusions
Gender budgeting, pay equity and shared
responsibilities in care giving are closely
interdependent ? Womens higher care
responsibilities affect access to equal pay ?
Unequal pay leads to higher shares of women in
care work ? Gender imbalanced budgets tend to
increase unpaid workloads We need strategies
taking simultaneously into account equal sharing
of responsibilities in care giving, pay equity
and gender responsive budgeting
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
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Thank you for your attention Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg University of Bern, Switzerland brigitte.s
chnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch
New York, March 3rd 2009 Dr. Brigitte
Schnegg brigitte.schnegg_at_izfg.unibe.ch