Fiscal policies for women’s economic empowerment by Stefania Fabrizio, Daniel Gurara and Lisa Kolovich published by IMF (2/2020).
“Making sure that opportunities to enter the workforce are fair and rewarding for women benefits everyone. Yet, the average female workforce participation rate across countries is still 20 percentage points lower than the male rate, largely because gender gaps in wages and access to opportunities, such as education, stubbornly persist.
Our new study finds that fiscal policy choices that address gender equality—such as investing in education or infrastructure, developing better sanitation facilities, implementing individual-based tax regimes, and offering parental leave—create more economic opportunities for women, increase growth, and reduce poverty and inequality.
Most measures pay for themselves in the long run without additional costs for governments and the added bonus—a larger workforce leads to higher economic activity and growth, which generate additional tax revenue for the country.
Inclusive fiscal policies
Since the mid-1980s, at least 80 countries across all levels of development and regions have adopted fiscal policies to promote gender equality. Previous IMF research suggests that in advanced economies, when governments actively promote policies to increase female labor force participation, more women do indeed join the labor force.
Canada , Czech Republic, and Sweden, for example, have witnessed a substantial increase in women’s paid work when the countries switched to using individual rather than family income taxation.
For low-income and developing countries, programs aimed at reducing gender gaps in education, particularly for secondary and university education, have supported more economic opportunities for women. Other effective fiscal policies, such as better infrastructure, decrease the time spent on unpaid care work, while providing more women the choice to enter into paid employment.
The bottom line is that greater gender parity at all levels, from unskilled workers to top management positions, can also foster the creation of new ideas—leading to higher productivity…”
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