Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Impact of gender-responsive budgeting in
Austria: The narrow line between
implementation and confirmation
OECD
September 22, 2022
Johann Seiwald, Parliamentary Budget Office, Austrian Parliament
Tobias Polzer, WU Vienna, Austria
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Context: GRB in Austria
• Federal Budget Law Reform
• Decisions in 2007 and 2009
• Going live in 2009 and 2013
• GRB as constitutional
principle (2009)
• New organic budget
law (2013)
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Guiding research question
“To what extent has GRB actually been implemented
in the Austrian context and has GRB become
accepted (i.e. political and administrative
commitment and a legitimate practice)?”
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Analytical framework
(Rogers 2003; Ezzamel et al. 2014)
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 Understanding implementation from pre-
implementation stages

Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Empirical site – manifestations of GRB
• Ex ante: Regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) - gender
assessment is an integral element for laws passed by
parliament, including state contracts
• Ex post: Audit reports from the Austrian Court of Audit:
Supreme Audit Institution Reports (SAIRs)
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Data, methods and analysis
• Documents – time span 2013-2018:
• RIAs – 730 impact assessments
• SAIRs – 339 audit reports
• Analysis:
• Gender topic (relevant for the law/audit topic)
• Gender analysis (substantive analysis, qualitative and
quantiative)
• Gender measures (proposed)
• Responsible ministry
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Stage 1 – prior conditions
• Chart of discourse in Parliament
• 1979 – Gender Equality Treatment Act and State Secretary for
Women
• 1991 – Ministry of Women
• 1998 – Constitutional amendment in corporating gender equality
(Parlagram database: https://www.momentum-institut.at/parlagram/)
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Stage 2 and 3 – knowledge about
GRB and persuasion
• awareness knowledge; principles knowledge; and how-to
knowledge (Rogers 2003)
• Civil society – researchers and experts
• Preparatory measures for Federal Budget Law Reform
• Informal parliamentary reform committee
• 2005 – gender-relevant information in budget documents
(‘gender aspects of the budget’)
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Stage 4 – decision
• Federal Budget Law Reform

Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Stage 5 – implementation as of 2013
• Gender relevance of RIA stable
• No clear overall trends in quality of RIAs
• Analysis more relevant than policy measures (often ex-post
RIA instead of use for policy making)
• Policy decisions often decoupled with administrative and
expert processes
• Outlier 2017: Many iniatiatives by Parliament with no RIA
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Stage 5 – implementation (2)
• Differences between ministries
• Depending on qualification and ownership
• Ministerial quality assurance mechanisms improve
the quality of RIA
• Challenge: RIA undertaken by policy divisions
spread across the ministry, no routine developed
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Stage 5 – implementation (3)
• No formal requirement to consider gender-issues by SAI
• Reflected in SAIRs
• Recommendations follow analysis (increase over time)
• Potential for expanding gender dimension
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Stage 6 – confirmation?
• Gradual embedding of GRB into the budget system (e.g.
pilot projects, Inter-Ministerial Working Group) 
‘incremental’ rather than ‘abrupt’ process of change
• RIA: requirement to be fulfilled, often not filled with
„life“
• SAIRs: when applied, then meaningful
• RIA undermined by legal proposals from MPs which do
not require (gender) impact assessments
• Awareness of Austrian MPs, but no systematic use in
debates
• But no indication to roll back the system
 Confirmation remains incomplete
(Moser/Korać 2020; Saliterer et al. 2019; Streeck/Thelen 2005)
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Overall assessment of achievements
• GRB makes underlying gender gaps and issues
transparent
• Some gender indicators have improved (such as the
gender pay gap)
• Political support and training of civil servants
important
• Professionalizing GRB activities in line ministries to
ensure higher quality across ministries
• GRB as ‘fair-weather policy’: RIA system
undermined e.g. with COVID-19-emergency
measures
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Key lessons for impact assessment
• Understand the implementation context well
• Decide upon key outputs for analysis
• Standardized methodology to quantify impact and
assess quality of information
• International comparison helps identifying country
specific strengths and weaknesses
• Complement with expert interviews of different
stakeholders
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Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Would you like to know more?
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https://blog-pfm.imf.org/pfmblog/2021/09/-a-review-
of-academic-studies-of-gender-budgeting-.html
https://blog-pfm.imf.org/pfmblog/2020/08/-first-results-of-
gender-responsive-budgeting-in-austria-.html
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Polzer T. and Seiwald J. (2021) Gender-responsive budgeting in Austria: The narrow
line between implementation and confirmation. Public Money & Management. DOI:
10.1080/09540962.2021.1927516.

Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliamentary Administration
Many thanks! – Q&A
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