Although legislation on taxation and benefits is intended to be gender-neutral, due to differences in labour market status and income levels in particular, men and women are likely to be affected differently by reforms to the Socio-fiscal system / tax-and-transfer system. Furthermore, because women and men live within larger units such as the household or the tax household, the exact impact of a social and tax policy on women and men depends on how resources are pooled and distributed. An analysis of these reforms from the perspective of gender inequalities is therefore not only necessary but must also take account of this inter-individual sharing of resources.
Under an agreement with the State Secretariat for Women’s Rights, this report aims to propose a methodology for analysing the effects of socio-fiscal reforms on gender inequalities, and to apply this methodology to measures contained in the draft Finance Bill and the draft Social Security Funding Bill for 2015. Indeed, whilst such an analysis is necessary to combat these inequalities more effectively – and is therefore mandatory – it is not straightforward, owing to the pooling and sharing of resources, particularly taxes and benefits, that may occur between individuals living within collective entities. To distinguish the effects of a tax or benefit reform on women and men, it is therefore necessary to formulate assumptions regarding this inter-individual sharing of resources.
By applying this methodology to the analysis of three measures: the abolition of the first income tax bracket, the income-based adjustment of child benefit, and the reform of the CSG scale on replacement income, we find that these three proposed reforms do indeed have different expected effects depending on gender. Above all, the results highlight the importance of the assumption made regarding the sharing of levies and benefits within a collective unit, since, depending on the assumption adopted, the conclusions regarding the effects on gender inequality can vary significantly.
