Gender budgeting in Slovenia—approaches, achievements, and complexities

Abstract

IMPACT: The article reviews gender budgeting in Slovenia. It explains the development of gender budgeting in the country, as well as future trends. The review provides a useful tool for policy-makers and other decision-makers who are dealing with gender inequality issues. Accordingly, the article tries to pay more attention to the practical aspects of the social lives of both sexes and identify the inherent national causes of the current situation and gender inequality because gender budgeting is simply a reflection of a country’s social climate. ABSTRACT: Most EU countries design public policies without any systematic consideration of gender equality. Qualitative research in this article evidences Slovenia progress in implementing gender responsive budgeting. The authors’ analysis of the Slovenian government’s budgets for 2005, 2018 and 2019 reveals few policies and programmes with gender equality as a key concern. Gender sensitivity should not be evaluated solely on gender measures; however, this article is a pioneer attempt to assess the Slovenian gender budgeting approach and progress, and provides a starting point for future evaluations.