An empirical assessment of the effectiveness of gender budget initiatives on women’s political empowerment

ABSTRACT

After the adoption of gender budget initiatives in Australia in 1983, over seventy countries aiming to improve women’s political empowerment introduce gender budget initiatives to engender policies. However, the relationship between gender budget initiatives and women’s political empowerment has not been examined thoroughly and empirically. This article assesses the influence of gender budget initiatives with panel data about 173 countries from 1980 to 2016. Using panel data fixed effects models, this article finds that the introduction of gender budget initiatives improves women’s political empowerment. This link is consistently robust in a lagged dependent variable (LDV) model specification. Moreover, the estimated average treatment effects (ATEs) and average treatment effects on the treated (ATETs) of gender budget initiatives on women’s political empowerment also support the efficiency of gender budget initiatives. This article contributes to the literature on gender budget and women’s empowerment by testing the general impacts of gender budget initiatives on women’s political empowerment with time-series cross-national data.

ABSTRACT IN KOREAN

호주에서 1983년 성인지 예산제도를 채택한 이후, 70여개 이상의 국가들이 여성의 정치역량 강화를 위해 성인지 예산제도를 도입했다. 그러나, 성인지 예산제도가 여성의 정치역량 강화로 연결되는지에 대한 실증적 연구는 활발히 진행되고 있지 않은 실정이다. 본 연구는 선행연구에 기여하기 위해 성인지 예산제도가 여성의 정치역량 강화에 미치는 영향력을 1980년부터 2016년까지 173개 국가에 관한 데이터를 활용해 실증적으로 분석한다. 본 연구는 패널고정효과 모형을 추정하여 성인지 예산제도의 도입이 여성의 정치역량 강화로 이어진다는 점을 발견했다. 이러한 상관관계는 시차종속변수(Lagged Dependent Variable)를 활용한 통계모형에서도 일관되게 통계적으로 유의미했다. 이에 더해서, 본 연구는 성인지 예산제도의 평균처리효과(Average Treatment Effect)와 처리에 대한 평균처리효과(Average Treatment Effect on the Treated) 역시 유의미하다는 점을 발견했다. 본 연구는 다수 국가 간 시계열 교차분석을 통해 성인지 예산제도와 여성의 정치역량 강화와의 상관관계를 실증적으로 검증했다는 의의가 있다.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender budget initiatives
• women’s political empowerment
• time-series cross-national analysis
• gender and politics
• policy effectiveness

KEYWORDS:

• 성인지 예산제도
• 여성의 정치역량 강화
• 국가 간 시계열 교차분석
• 젠더와 정치
• 정책 효율성

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a research grant from Seoul Women’s University (2023-0064).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Byung-Deuk WOO

Byung-Deuk WOO is a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute of Social Data Science, Pohang University of Science and Technology. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (2017) and a Ph.D. degree in Political Science from University of Iowa. His research focuses on democratization, public health, and women in politics. He has published journal articles in British Journal of Political Science (2022), Contemporary Politics (2022), Sage Open (2022), Asian Women (2021), Korean Journal of Security Affairs (2020), Korean Journal of Defense Analysis (2019), and so on. Email: [email protected]

Na Kyeong LEE

Na Kyeong LEE is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics at Seoul Women’s University. She received a Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on big data analytics, nonparametric econometrics, and political economy. She has published journal articles in the Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money (2019), Journal of Supercomputing (2019), Scientometrics (2020), and so on. Email: [email protected]