Gender equality and income inequalities in fiscal policies (WP3)

Research group Researchers in this part of the FairTax project will produce innovative research and policy recommendations on the gender effects of changes in tax bases, tax rates, and the tax mix. They will also study the gender effects of the use of the couple or the family as tax and benefit units in the EU.

Regardlessly of what aspects on sustainability conventional policy norms are addressing, they all miss the embedded gender biases of laws, policies and practises. This part of the FairTax project seeks to bridge the gap between a growing understanding of the gender impact of tax and benefit laws, on the one hand, and the limited attention given to these findings in EU policy processes, on the other.

The research group will conduct studies on gender effects of the fiscal system as well as the social benefit side of the public budget. They will also try to point out the problems of jurisdictional and enforcement inconsistencies between EU's commitment to gender equality and the lack of governance authority. The research will address the European Commission's competence to legislate on or influence tax and transfer provisions that engage gender equality standards. They will also give reccomendations on substantive tax-benefit regulations that should be harmonized to remove structural and fiscal barriers to women's equality.

Benchmarking studies will used to show the gender impact of tax policy developments, and in-depth analyses will be used to capture effects of ongoing policy changes. A model-simulation of complete individualization of tax-benefit provisions in selected countries will also be performed.