While there has been progress on some aspects of gender equality, women still experience structural inequality throughout their lives. This means that policies impact women and men differently. In many cases, traditional economic policy might actually serve to engender existing inequalities by not taking this into account. Feminist economics aims to address.

Starting from the position that women and men experience the world in different ways, feminist economics is able to produce policy for a more gender equal society. it recognises that unpaid labour – such as domestic and care work – is just as essential to a well-functioning economy as the production and distribution of goods and services. In this way, feminist economics challenges notions of “work” and “production” that are based solely on manufacturing, and asks us to rethink how we value the different sorts of activity that occur within our society.

The Women’s Budget Group have put together a set of easy and accessible resources on feminist economics to help everyone understand the principles behind it. Do download these, share them with your local feminist groups and start a conversation about what feminist economics is, and how it works!

UK Women’s Budget Group

The Women’s Budget Group (WBG) is an independent network of leading academic researchers, policy experts and campaigners. Our vision is of a caring economy that promotes equality between genders. For over 30 years we have examined economic policy and asked ‘who benefits?’. We produce robust analysis and aim to influence the people making policy. We also work to build the knowledge and confidence of others to talk about feminist economics by offering training and creating accessible resources.

See www.wbg.org.uk for more information.

Download What Is Feminist Economics here