Integrating Gender into Benefit Incidence and Demand Analysis

This report addresses two questions: To what extent does public spending mitigate or exacerbate gender inequities in welfare in developing countries? How can existing allocations of public expenditure be changed to improve gender equity in the use of services such as health and education? It does this through a detailed review and interpretation of the existing literature and through primary analyses on a large sample of developing country data sets. Regarding the first question, we integrate gender considerations into standard benefit incidence analysis, and address in particular the issue of whether and how gender gaps in benefits vary across the income distribution. The second question is addressed through gender-disaggregated econometric analysis of the demand for public services, including health care, education, and water. The paper also sets out the appropriate methodologies for integrating gender into benefit incidence analysis and for comparing impacts by gender of policies affecting the demand for services. The main lesson drawn from the empirical analysis - as well as from a careful reading of the existing literature - is that gender differences in the use of services, and the response of these gaps to changes in incomes and policies, are not universal and do not always occur where they might be most expected. Therefore, they need to be investigated on a case by case basis