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AbstractFeminist economists and heterodox macroeconomists have contributed substantively to the body of research that explores the distributional effects of macro policies. This work explicitly addresses the livelihood problems created by neoliberalism and, in addition, it provides a pathway for identifying financing mechanisms. Building on earlier work by Seguino and Grown (2006), this article synthesizes and elaborates the major contributions of this body of gender and macro research and, from this, extrapolates macro‐level policies and tools that support gender equality. Among the tools identified is targeted government spending on physical and social infrastructure, the latter a relatively new conceptual tool that is discussed in detail. A key argument is that financing for gender equality that raises economy‐wide productivity can be self‐sustaining. As a result, both physical and social infrastructure spending have the ability to create fiscal space. This possibility offers a financing framework for gender equality expenditures. A contribution of this article is to critique mainstream monetary policies and identify alternative approaches that expand the toolkit to achieve gender equality goals.

This paper identifies a series of macro-level tools to create a supportive environment and the resources to promote SDGs related to gender equality. A key argument is that financing for gender equality can be self-sustaining because of the feedback effects from gender equality to economy-wide well-being. Among the tools related to targeted government spending are demand-stimulating macroeconomic policies to promote full employment and public investment. Two types of public investment are explored. Physical infrastructure investment, such as spending on clean water, sanitation, and health clinics, can reduce women's unpaid care burden. Social infrastructure investment, defined as investment in people's capabilities, refers to the fundamental social, intellectual, and emotional skills and health of individuals— or level of human development—a country relies on for its economy to function. Both types have a public goods quality in that they generate positive spillover effects on economy-wide productivity. Financing for gender equality in these areas is more properly seen as an investment that yields an income stream in the future, as a result of the beneficial development and growth effects. As a result, both physical and social infrastructure spending have the ability to create fiscal space. Additional sources of financing for gender equality are discussed, including taxation of the financial sector. Monetary policy can also be harnessed to promote gender equality. A much wider range of policy tools are available to central banks than are now used. These include capital management techniques, asset-based reserve requirements, and loan guarantees in order to overcome women's lack of legal title to assets. The review of monetary policy tools here also suggests that emphasis on low inflation via the policy interest rate is problematic on two counts. First, higher interest rates dampen aggregate demand and thus employment. Second, the policy interest rate failures to address the underlying causes of inflationary pressures in many countries. Those pressures are often best dealt with through targeted fiscal policies in education, health care, and investment in strategic sectors, such as agriculture and infrastructure. Government and central banks cannot adequately pursue these goals without changing their composition. The lens for identifying appropriate public investment projects and credit targets needs to be gendered and ethnically representative, underscoring the important role of affirmative action in private and public decision-making bodies.

This paper advances a theory of gender justice, defined as equality of outcomes in three domains: capabilities, livelihoods, and empowerment/agency. A pivotal requirement is that women and men must be equally distributed along axes of well-being, with their respective distributions possessing equal means and dispersions. An understanding of gender stratification lies behind this proposal, whereby males benefit materially from a system of gender-divided work and responsibilities. This hierarchical system, buttressed by gender ideology, norms, and stereotypes, is disturbed as we approach gender equality in outcomes, especially of livelihoods. The latter induces greater female bargaining power which, coupled with the effect of social role incongruency on norms and stereotypes, serves to leverage change. Macroeconomic policy can support the shift to greater economic power for women by creating the conditions for class equality that is compatible with sustained economic growth.

An exploration of inequality at the intersection of race, gender, and nationality offers a means to explore how complex economic and social forces combine to shape women's outcomes in ways that differ from men's. Women's responsibility for care work and other forms of unpaid labor inhibits labor force participation, and in some cases, redounds heavily on children. Those responsibilities, coupled with labor market discrimination against black women, US or foreign born, increases the difficulties single mothers face in providing for families.