All the pre-budget talk of “bread and butter”, “no frills”, targeting and reprioritisation came with a sense of foreboding. History and research tell us that budgets in general – but particularly those hyper-focused on fiscal prudence – have different, often unequal impacts on women compared to men.
For those of us who have long advocated for applying a gender lens to the budget, however, those fears were misplaced. That’s because Budget 2023 included a gender budgeting “snapshot” – the first New Zealand budget to do so.
