India stands as a leader in gender budgeting, institutionalizing this policy at both national and subnational levels, with nearly half of its states and Union Territories adopting it. Despite this, there is a lack of cross-state comparative empirical studies and impact analyses, primarily due to scarce gender-disaggregated statistics. This study aims to bridge this gap using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data, an underexplored source of gender-disaggregated information. Employing the difference-in-difference (DID) method and Kabeer's women's empowerment framework, this analysis reveals that states effectively implementing gender budgeting policies tend to outperform others in various indicators of gender development and empowerment. This trend underscores the benefits of integrating gender considerations into budgeting, in contrast to states where gender is overlooked in budgetary processes.
Pulikkamath et al. (Mon,) studied this question.