Does Gender Budgeting Improve Women's Well‐Being, Equality, and Empowerment?
2026-08-24
The United Nations' fifth Sustainable Development Goal calls for gender equality and empowerment. Gender budgeting (GB) has been proposed as a potential mechanism to reduce gender disparities. This is a novel approach to budgeting that considers the impact of public spending on women and other underrepresented groups. Despite its growing popularity, spreading to over 80 countries since its launch in the 1980s, the effectiveness of GB remains less understood. This study tests whether GB has led to tangible improvements in women's well‐being, equality, and empowerment. We use an event study research design with staggered adoption to analyze data across 47 countries from 2000 to 2023. Our analyses of average and heterogeneous treatment effects reveal short‐ and long‐term impacts; notably, we find significant reductions in maternal mortality ratios and adolescent birth rates, as well as improvements in women's political empowerment.