Following years of campaigning by NIF grantee the Adva Center, the state budget will now include gender analysis. This victory follows the establishment of a special committee charged with examining the state budget from a gender perspective. The analysis will show how resources are divided between women and men and whether their distribution addresses their respective needs and priorities. Presenting a budget with a gender distribution been used effectively to reduce gender inequality in other countries.

For example, the budget now reveals that 69% of Ministry of Health employees are women, but they only receive 62% of the total salaries. More encouragingly, it also shows that more of the Welfare Ministry’s budget for seniors goes to women – however, this also reflects the fact that women have a longer life expectancy than men.

The hope is that this will have an influence on future policy, and help set priorities on the basis of gender.

Photo Credit: “Israel New Shekels” by Flickr user Michael Plump.