Gender Budgeting

Hypothetical case study: addressing identified gender equality gaps in an OP

In southern Europe, a fictional country’s context analysis identified the potential to increase women’s presence in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Within this output, the managing authorities developed further information, referring to the context analysis and the aim of increasing women’s role in SMEs, as both entrepreneurs and employees. Therefore, the OP’s implementation paid specific attention to boosting women’s share in SMEs, particularly in business start-ups. Accordingly, a specific budget was allocated to this end.

Services were needed that specifically target women, such as access to credit, training and coaching on managing businesses, and care services and innovative ICT services to support work-life balance for both women and men, – such as ICT-supported interventions for providing care for older persons and other forms of social care. SME development could cut across ESF and ERDF actions to address the complexity of combining paid work with and unpaid care responsibilities, while enhancing women’s engagement in training programmes and access to paid work. For instance, training was offered in the identified sectors and professions where women are predominantly active, as were interventions to simultaneously address men’s under-representation in care work, both paid and unpaid. In tandem, specific support activities were developed to aid women entrepreneurs to develop business plans, access credit, and set-up their own businesses. These initiatives were rolled out both in sectors traditionally dominated by women and in sectors usually dominated by men.

Regular sex-disaggregated monitoring was undertaken to assess the support provided, beneficiaries’ needs, the progress of business start-ups, access to credit, the size of businesses, and indicators related to success and survival. This monitoring contributed to correcting gender biases during programme implementation. For example, the average (guaranteed) credit allocated to men was found to be higher than that available to women, whereas the business default rate after 1 year was higher among male-owned businesses than female-owned start-ups.

This was because women’s time availability increased, making them more attractive as employees, as they were able to enter full-time employment.