导读:由于男女公平常常不会纳入政绩考量的范围，政府往往不会重视促进男女公平的政策，然而一项预算方法表明，性别公平与经济增长息息相关！
IT IS easy to be cynical about government-and rarely does such cynicism go unrewarded. Take, for instance, policy towards women. Some politicians declare that they value women’s unique role, which can be shorthand for keeping married women at home looking at their kids. Other create whole ministries devoted to policy for women, which can be a device for parking women’s issue on the periphery of policy where they cannot do any harm. Still others, who may actually mean what they say, pass laws giving women equal opportunities to men. Yet decreeing an end to discrimination is very different from bringing it about.
对政府冷嘲热讽很容易，而且花在这方面的功夫很少会白费。以针对女性的政策为例，有些政客宣称自己重视女性独一无二的角色，换言之，就是让已婚女性安心在家照看孩子。其他一些政客专门为制定女性政策成立了完整的部门，这么做可将女性问题推到大政方针的边缘搁置起来，如此便不会招来任何的麻烦。还有一些人或许可算真心诚意，他们通过法律给予了女性和男性同等的机会。然而，歧视的产生可不是颁布政令就可以终止的。
Amid this tangle of evasion, half-promises and wishful thinking, some policy makers have embraced a technique called gender budgeting. It not only promises to do a lot of good for women, but carries a lesson for advocates of any cause: the way to a government’s heart is through its pocket.
在这一片闪烁其词、虚与委蛇以及一厢情愿构成的纷乱中，一些政策制定者欣然采纳了一个名为性别预算的方法。不仅女性有可能因此得到莫大的好处，为实现任何其他目标而努力奔走的人也可得到启发：要抓住政府的心，就得把手伸进它的钱袋子里面。
At this simplest, gender budgeting sets out to quantity how policies affect women and men differently. That seemingly trivial step converts exhortation about treating women fairly into the coin of government: costs and benefits, and investments and returns. You don’t have to be a feminist to recognize, as Austria did, that the numbers show haw lowering income tax on second earners will encourage women to join the labor force, boosting growth and tax revenues. Or that cuts to programmes designed to reduce domestic violence would be a false economy, because they would cost so much in medical treatment and lost workdays.
简单来说，性别预算的目的在于量化各种政策对女性和男性的不同影响。这一看似无关紧要的步骤却可将公平对待女性的殷切劝导转化为政府的财务考量：成本与收益，投资与回报。一个人即使不是女权主义者，也能和奥地利一样，承认有数据显示降低伴侣中收入较低者的所得税会鼓励女性就业，从而刺激增长并增加税收。或者，削减对减少家暴项目的投入看似会省钱，实际上却得不偿失，因为这会导致大笔的医疗支出，还会耽误工作。
Partly because South Korea invested little in social care, women have to choose between having children, which lowers labor-force participation, or remaining childless, which reduces the country’s fertility rate. Gender budgeting showed how, with an aging population, the country gained from spending on care. Rwanda found that investment in clean water not only curbed disease but also freed up girls, who used to fetch the stuff, to go to school. Ample research confirms that leaving half a country’s people behind is bad for growth. Violence against women; failing to educate girls properly; unequal pay and access to jobs; all take an economic toll.
从前，某种程度上因韩国在社会照护方面投入甚少，该国女性不得不在生与不生孩子之间做选择；前者会降低劳动力参与度，后者则会降低国家的生育率。性别预算表明，这个人口日趋老龄化的国家因对社会关怀的投入而获益。卢旺达政府发现，投资于洁净水不仅可以遏制疾病，还可以将女孩们从取水的劳动中解放出来，让她们去上学。将她们抛诸脑后，都会对经济增长造成负面影响。女性遭受暴力对待、女孩未能获得像样的教育、薪酬与工作机会不均等——这些问题都会产生经济损失。
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