Gender Budget Target in Active Labour Market Policy: Minimum 50 Percent of Funding for Women

In 2007, gender budgeting was made mandatory under the Austrian constitution, an obligation that applies to the federal budget as well as to the budgets of the subsidiary government bodies and is thus an integral element of all effect-oriented budgeting efforts. The Public Employment Service has over several years been building up a tradition of pursuing a gender-sensitive, equal-opportunities and effect-oriented labour market policy in line with the objectives of the Federal Minister of Labour. For several years, there has been an explicit specification by the Ministry to target at least 50 percent of the funding within the scope of active labour market policy at schemes for women. The study uses quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the strategies and structures of funding in the Länder and to discuss the effect of this gender budget target.