PhD Student (Scholarship) in Public Administration or Social Equity

Members of groups currently underrepresented in academia are encouraged to apply, with reasonable accommodation for disability or caring responsibilities, among other concerns.

The main aims of the project include:

• establishing best practice for gender and intersectional budgeting, including tools for civil servants and government agencies; and
• devising multi-dimensional measures of progress and outcomes.

Gender and intersectional budgeting is about the state using its financial resources and fiscal policy settings to reduce social inequalities and to achieve equality in the broadest possible terms, albeit cognisant that analysis based solely or mainly on general demographic categories can marginalise many citizens. Starting in Australia in the 1980s, gender budgeting in some form has now been implemented in over 80 countries (Stotsky, 2016), while intersectional considerations are becoming more common. Over the last few decades the principal focus has been on gender, but increasingly multiple, concurrent, and intersecting inequalities and power imbalances are being considered, related but not limited to race, class, gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity, First Nations and Indigenous personhood, disability, age, religion, language, region, and parental status.

There are several approaches from ensuring that the government’s annual budget is allocating resources equitably among all citizens and that the impacts of taxation and related measures are fair to more interventionist strategies in targeting the use of tax and spending powers in order to correct underlying structural disparities (see Elson 2004). It is also important to consider the life course and how choices made under poorer previous or current circumstances impact future prospects, as well as changing memberships of different households over time (Himmelweit, 2005).

Within government, gender equality is not necessarily effectively conceptualised and 50 percent for women is used as a default outcome objective, along with other superficial goals due to deficiencies in organisational knowledge and competence, and the absence of a direct link between budget numbers and equity objectives (Quinn, 2016; Klatzer et al., 2018). Intersectionality is not currently well-understood within the civil service (as shown in Canadian research, which is currently the only civil service with a comprehensive approach, Gender-Based Analysis Plus). A major barrier to fully realising gender and intersectional budgeting remains the quality, availability, and appropriateness of data and more qualitative methods and outcomes are also needed.

The Belgian case will proceed from the introduction of the Gender Mainstreaming Act in 2007. Ministries are identifying gender impacts and effects of budgetary, legislative and regulatory measures, assisted by an interdepartmental coordination group. The second case will focus on the European Union (EU). The EU is pursuing a ‘gender-aware policy appraisal’ as a possible first stage towards introducing gender budgeting, and is considering other characteristics such as age, socioeconomic situation, disability, race, ethnicity, religion, and rural or urban location.

Key questions include:

• how can intersectionality, as well as non-binary conceptions of gender, be represented statistically?
• is greater diversity and inclusion within the civil service associated with more effective implementation of gender and intersectional budgeting?
• how do individual agencies translate central or whole-of-government mandates? and
• does Belgium’s federal structure facilitate or inhibit (and to what degrees) policy experimentation, coordination, and learning, including relations with the EU?

The research methods include interviews with civil servants and documentary analysis of policy papers, legislation, and budgets.

• Two-year full-time research activity initially (100%, 24 months) and a further two years of full-time funded research activity planned (100% for a total of 48 months);
• The proposed starting date is 1 October 2021 or soon thereafter (it might be possible to delay the starting date to 2022);
• The project is based at the Louvain-la-Nueve campus of UCLouvain (but subject to negotiation, it might be possible to do some work at the Mons campus), with fieldwork in Brussels and other parts of Belgium;
• Academic supervision and mentoring to complete a PhD thesis;
• Management of interactions with the public organisations involved in collaborative activities;
• Participation in the project design, data collection and analysis, and the dissemination of research outcomes; and
• Participation in the activities of the Centre and Institute.