Government budgeting is typically thought of balancing the books: money in and money out, with consideration given to wide sectors of the community that will be affected by the budget, such as industry, families, education or health. However, very little consideration is given to the impact budgets have upon men and women respectively. Budget papers focus on financial aggregates of revenues, and expenditures and balances as either being in surplus or deficit. A link between government budgets and gender issues is usually not explicitly made, and gender issues are often addressed by social rather than economic policy. Consequently, government budgets are often perceived as gender-neutral. This gender-neutral assumption ignores the fact that budgetary impacts are often different and unequal between men and women (Budlender and Sharp, 1998). This is because men and women, on the whole, occupy different socio-economic positions, play different roles and undertake different responsibilities in the paid and unpaid economy. For example, women are more likely to earn lower incomes compared to men, hold less wealth, live in poverty with dependent children and undertake more of the share of unpaid work.
