Gendered economic policy making: the case of public expenditures on family allowances

Oznur Ozdamar

doi:10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2017-8

Abstract

AbstractParliament is the place where politicians make laws to set the policy direction of countries. Non-involvement of different voices such as gender, race and ethnicity in policy decisions may create an inequality in policy-making. Regarding gender, previous literature suggests that women and men may have different policy prefer- ences and women give more priority to policies related to their traditional roles as care givers to children in the family. Public spending on family allowances is one of the economic policies that plays an important role in helping families for childcare. This paper contributes to the literature by analyzing the relationship between female political representation and public spending on family allowances within a perspective of critical-mass framework.

Highlights

The participation of citizens in public policy-making process comes in two forms: a)Direct democracy: Direct participation of citizens in government affairs b)Indirect democracy: Indirect participation through representatives who are elected in elections
If we look at the pooled-OLS estimation results in columns (1), the significance of the 30% critical mass threshold is not clear with the use of different samples
Once country fixed effects are introduced to capture any time-invariant country characteristics, the positive relationship between the female political representation over the 30% critical mass threshold and the public spending on family allowances remained unchanged

Summary

Introduction

The participation of citizens in public policy-making process comes in two forms: a)Direct democracy: Direct participation of citizens in government affairs b)Indirect democracy: Indirect participation through representatives who are elected in elections. The empirical studies often emphasize on the preference differences between sexes Their common argument is that women are more likely than man invest in children and favour redistribution and they give priority to public policies related to their traditional roles as care givers in the family and society (Besley and Case, 2000; Case and Deaton, 1998; Alesina and La Ferrara, 2005; Thomas, 1990; Duflo, 2003; Edlund and Pande, 2002; Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004). Gender identity of the politician might matter but the ineffectiveness of the female political participation on policy-decision making and the insufficient allocation towards family allowances may depend on the under-representation of women in political institutions.

Theoretical Background and Existing Studies

Findings

Empirical Robustness

Conclusions