Moving boundaries with gender budgeting: from the margins to the mainstream: From the Margins to the Mainstream

Gender budgeting (GB) emerged in the 1980s building on feminist economics analysis of public resource allocation processes based on male bias in economic models and policy institutions. At its core, it aims to promote gender equality by engaging with public finance from a transformational perspective that results in integrating the provision of care in economic policy and deconstructing gender norms which perpetuate inequalities. The chapter takes an historical perspective on GB, tracing conceptual developments and contestations, and offers a critical perspective on the transformational adoption or institutional co-option that is characterizing GB as it moves from the margins to the mainstream. The authors propose a refined set of favourable conditions necessary to underpin Rosselli’s proposition that ‘Gender Budgeting is a powerful instrument for feminist transformation’.