Local gender policies in Brazil

This paper is part of a research funded by the Brazilian National Research Council and Women’s National Secretariat which has the purpose of providing a summary of local gender policies in Brazil. My source of data was the 2009 Profile of Brazilian Municipalities, conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. This data was collected in each Brazilian municipality. Next, I will present the main findings of this analysis. In 4,522 (81.3%) out of the 5,564 Brazilian municipalities there weren’t any gender policies being implemented. Only in 1,042 (18.7%) municipalities were there any kind of gender policies. Only 3.4% of them have developed a plan for women’s policies and 6.8% have a budget to implement women’s policies. Around 7% of the municipalities implemented policies that address violence against women. Among these initiatives were shelters and reference centers for violence-victimized women. Policies were also implemented in education, health, or work. Some programs are developed in cooperation with the government at the national or state level, NGOs, religious institutions and worker’s organizations. Among these, NGOs and religious institutions stand out. Gender policies were significantly different accross the population size categories of municipalities. The greater the municipality’s population,  the greater the likelihood of the existence of gender policies. Gender policies were different  across the Brazilian states as well. For instance, in Roraima, a state in the Northern Region, there weren’t any municipalities with  policies addressing women. Socio-demographic characteristics of the mayors such as gender, schooling and group of age do not seem to influence the existence and the quality of gender policies. Approximately the same proportion of municipalities with female and male mayors implement gender policies. What influences the most is the political party.