Gender budgeting in emerging economies–a systematic literature review and research agenda

Purpose - Gender budgeting aims to include a gender perspective at all stages of the budgetary process. Emerging economies (EEs) face different challenges in gender equality to high-income economies–with larger informal economic sectors that typically employ a larger proportion of women and weaker political accountability. We analyse the literature on gender budgeting in EEs and derive avenues for future research. Design/methodology/approach - Adopting a systematic literature review, we investigate the focus of research on gender budgeting in EEs and analyse how the literature has developed over the last decade. Findings - Our results show that gender budgeting is a relevant topic in EEs. The literature focuses on overall rationales for employing gender budgeting and its theoretical implementation. However, many studies remain explorative, reviewing existing content without collecting new and potentially more suitable data. The evidence on the success of gender budgeting initiatives is mixed. While a number of studies present positive experiences regarding certain aspects of gender budgeting, other studies discuss a decoupling between adopted instruments and their actual use, as well as projects not being further pursued or developed when donors retreat. Originality/value - Given the identified lack of studies reporting on actual implementation experiences, future research should address gender budgeting from an accounting and accountability perspective and focus on the reform impacts.