Promoting gender equity, reducing discrimination on the basis of gender, and ensuring the economic participation of women, are important human rights objectives for many governments and international organisations, as reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals,1 the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Treaty on European Union (TEU),2 or the G20 Leaders’ commitments – reaffirmed at their November 2021 Summit – to gender equality and women’s empowerment (G20 Rome Summit, 2021[1]) The establishment of global initiatives such as UN Women3 and Women G204 also reflected the need for dedicated discussions and projects aiming at improving gender equality in various policy areas. Promoting gender equality in societies –is also a priority for the OECD and is part of its Programme of Work. In October 2021, the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting, gathering Ministers of Members and partners, called for policymakers to further develop the analysis of how public policies can help achieve gender equality, including by ensuring that the OECD can “model best practices in gender mainstreaming throughout its work, including through disaggregated data collection and analysis” (OECD, 2021[2]).
Beyond international commitments and human rights, working towards more inclusive economies in which women fully participate is also important for economic growth. OECD (OECD, 2016[3]) analysis indicates that gender discrimination and inequality impedes a country’s level of income, particularly in developing economies. The loss associated with gender discrimination, resulting in lowering total factor productivity and reducing the level of education and labour participation among women, was estimated by the OECD at up to USD 12 trillion, or 16% of the global GDP in 2016. Against that background, improving gender equality and reducing gender-based discrimination could yield substantial economic benefits.
As the COVID-19 crisis has worsened gender inequality (as shown for instance by research from the United Nations (UN Secretary-General, 2020[4]) and the EU Parliament (European Parliament, 2021[5]) and in relation to tax, in a recent study from Danish and Swedish academics (Lind and Gunnarsson, 2021[6])), the need to develop further analysis and policy responses is critical to ensure that beyond the objective of gender equality, women can fully participate in the economic and social recovery.
Gender equity is an integral part of tax design that supports inclusive growth. Tax policy measures can have material impacts on the participation of men and women in the economy, for instance with the impact of taxes on encouraging or discouraging labour force participation, or in its impact on entrepreneurship and investment decisions. Tax policy also has a material impact on the wellbeing of citizens, and thus on gender outcomes, via its impact on disposable incomes, consumption and wealth and thus also has an important role in affecting the wellbeing of men and women.
Against this background, this report takes stock of countries’ priorities and practices in relation to tax and gender, including how they address explicit and implicit biases, to what extent they take into account gender implications in policy development and budgeting, inclusion of gender considerations in tax administration and compliance, and the availability and use of gender disaggregated data. This report, which is based on a survey completed by 43 countries,5 provides an overview of key concepts in tax policy and gender (Chapter 2) and an analysis of the information gathered and findings observed from countries’ contributions, as well as considerations for policy-makers (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 concludes and discusses the implications of the survey responses.