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formal employment that benefits from these types oftax breaks. Women may face a larger burden of VATwhen they are responsible for purchasing consumergoods needed in the household. Progressive incometaxes may effectively tax women’s income at ahigher rate than men’s when household income ispooled to calculate the taxes owed and women’sincome is seen as supplemental to that of a malebreadwinner. 63 These distributional consequencesare often not considered when setting tax policies.Dominant macroeconomic strategies haveartificially reduced the fiscal space available togovernments, limiting the resources to financesocial policies and programmes that can helpimprove gender equality. More generally, fiscalpolicy has been formulated with little attentionto its impact on inequality and the social costs ofcutbacks to government spending. There is thepotential to mobilize additional resources to supportthe realization of economic and social rights. Thisrequires a different approach to macroeconomicpolicy, as the next section will describe.The interconnectedness of macroeconomicand social policiesCurrent policy frameworks and processes tend toartificially separate macroeconomic and socialpolicies. The role of the former is seen primarilyas maintaining price stability and promotinggrowth. When they are formulated, the impact ofsocial policies on the macroeconomic environmentand future trajectory of the economy are notconsidered. While social policies are recognized asimportant, they are to be implemented only oncebroad macroeconomic parameters have been set.In particular, how unpaid care and domestic workshapes the macroeconomic environment is nottaken into account.Social services, whether provided through thegovernment, private providers or unpaid care anddomestic work, have macroeconomic implications.Child development, education, health and socialcare policies, which were examined in detail inChapter 3, have direct implications for productivity,growth and economic performance. Similarly,policies to support youth in the transition to youngadulthood and into the labour market, discussed inChapter 2, have implications for the performanceof the economy as a whole. The artificial divisionbetween macroeconomic policies and these otherpolicy areas means that too little attention is paidto employment, unpaid work and social issues inthe formulation of macroeconomic strategies.Figure 4.6 illustrates the interconnectedness ofeconomic and social policies, and shows what arights-based approach to macroeconomic policymight look like.A RIGHTS-BASED MACROECONOMICPOLICY AGENDAMany of the problems with macroeconomic policiesdiscussed above are well known. Yet, in practice,policy alternatives are rarely adopted and, in mostcases, the approach to macroeconomic policy asactually implemented has not changed much sincethe 1980s. There are alternatives to neoliberal