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For India to achieve truly inclusive growth, it must recognise and value the invisible labour of care that sustains its economy and society
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As of 2025, global estimates suggest that if women’s labour force participation matched that of men, it could add up to US$28 trillion annually to global GDP. In India, government interventions such as extended maternity leave, gender-sensitive budgeting, and greater acknowledgement of unpaid care work have led to a measurable rise in women’s participation in salaried employment, as noted in the State of Working India 2023 report. However, while formal employment is a key pathway to achieving gender equality and broader development goals, the persistent invisibility of women’s unpaid care work within the household presents a structural barrier.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines carework as “consisting of activities and relations involved in meeting the physical, psychological and emotional needs of adults and children, old and young, frail and able-bodied. Care workers include a wide range of workers from university professors, doctors and dentists at one end of the spectrum, to childcare workers and personal care workers at the other. Care workers also include domestic workers”. The care economy encompasses all paid and unpaid activities related to caregiving, yet in most economic systems, unpaid carework remains uncounted and undervalued. Without the recognition and subsequent redistribution of unpaid carework, women continue to bear a disproportionate burden of work, balancing both salaried employment and the majority of household responsibilities. This dual responsibility undermines not only their well-being but also the sustainability of their economic participation in the workforce.
Care workers include a wide range of workers from university professors, doctors and dentists at one end of the spectrum, to childcare workers and personal care workers at the other.
The Indian government has taken early steps to foster a culture of shared household responsibilities, and frameworks like Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5.4 and the UN Women’s 5Rs—recognise, reduce, redistribute, reward, and represent—offer actionable guidance. Still, efforts to embed unpaid care work into economic policy face challenges, particularly due to perceptions that it is immeasurable or irrelevant to GDP.
One of the primary challenges in recognising unpaid care work is that it is not captured by conventional economic metrics, such as GDP. Moreover, assigning economic value to unpaid carework is difficult as it often takes place in private settings, making such labour difficult to observe and quantify. Along with neglecting unpaid care work, GDP fails to provide an account for the distribution of income within a country. There is a historical bias in national accounting systems, which tend to prioritise market transactions over non-market production.
The challenge in accounting for unpaid carework is often used as an excuse to disregard it from the purview of policymaking. The time use surveys provide us with immensely valuable data on unpaid carework by overcoming the challenges in data collection mentioned above, and should be employed to measure the economic contribution of women across the country, which is often invisible in our GDP and traditional metrics.
There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating the utility and impact of incorporating unpaid care work into national statistical systems. A prominent example is Mexico’s establishment of a Household Satellite Account, which quantifies the economic value of own-use production work, particularly unpaid care labour traditionally undertaken by women that remains excluded from conventional GDP calculations. This statistical innovation has enabled the Mexican government to better reflect the full spectrum of economic activity, offering a more holistic view of national productivity. Importantly, the Household Satellite Account has also informed policy discourse and development indicators, particularly those about gender equity, by rendering women’s otherwise invisible contributions to the economy both measurable and visible. Along with assistance from UN Women, the Mexican government's strategic use of time use surveys and satellite accounts has set an impactful example for countries in Latin America and beyond. Measuring the value of unpaid care work involves calculating the time individuals spend on domestic and caregiving tasks and assigning it a monetary value based on what it would cost to hire someone from the formal labour market to perform those duties. The Time Use Survey 2024 provides important data on how unpaid care work is distributed, revealing a significant gender disparity. Women aged 15 to 59, for instance, spend an average of 305 minutes per day on unpaid household tasks. Both the 2019 and 2024 surveys have been instrumental in underscoring the unequal burden of such work within households. When evaluated through the lens of opportunity cost, estimating the wage that would be paid for equivalent formal sector labour, women’s unpaid care and domestic work in India is estimated to contribute approximately 15 to 17 percent of the nation’s GDP.
Measuring the value of unpaid care work involves calculating the time individuals spend on domestic and caregiving tasks and assigning it a monetary value based on what it would cost to hire someone from the formal labour market to perform those duties.
Another potentially comparable approach for India has been adopted by South Korea, which developed satellite accounts drawing on data from its national time-use surveys. These accounts have been instrumental in recognising the value of unpaid care work and integrating this recognition into broader efforts to address structural gender inequalities. By quantifying the contribution of unpaid labour to GDP, South Korea has taken important steps toward aligning national accounting practices with the lived economic realities of women, thereby strengthening the empirical foundation for gender-responsive policymaking.
Such initiatives underscore the importance of alternative statistical frameworks in addressing the systemic invisibility of unpaid care work. They offer a pathway for countries like India to move towards more inclusive economic measurements that account for the full spectrum of labour contributions, particularly those of women in the domestic sphere.
India has made advancements to value the unpaid care work carried out by women, recognising its significant role in running the national economy. Such advancements include the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, which provides cash transfers to pregnant and lactating mothers, and the National Creche Scheme of 2017 or the Palna Scheme, which offers daycare facilities to children between the ages of six months to six years. Both these initiatives ensure the well-being of women belonging to marginalised communities and aim to equalise the playing field between men and women, yet continue to lack funding and effective implementation.
The roadmap includes support for parental leave policies, subsidies for care services, investments in building care infrastructure, mechanisms for skill training and lastly, the provision of mechanisms for monitoring service quality and benchmarks.
In 2024, the Karmannaya Counsel, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Nikore Associates, along with the support of the Ministry of Women and Children Development, formulated an inclusive national care strategy to uplift India’s care economy. It frames the issue of invisible and undervalued carework as not just of the emancipation of women but also as one of economic inefficiency. The policy brief offers a five-pillar roadmap to augment India’s care economy. The roadmap includes support for parental leave policies, subsidies for care services, investments in building care infrastructure, mechanisms for skill training and lastly, the provision of mechanisms for monitoring service quality and benchmarks.
Satellite accounts will document the yearly contribution of women to the national economy, which is beneficial for making targeted investments in care infrastructure, along with informing and subsequently tracking the progress made by implemented policies.
In conclusion, recognising and valuing unpaid care work is critical not only for advancing gender equity but also for strengthening national economic strategies in a meaningful and inclusive manner. The Indian economy, poised to become the fourth largest globally, cannot afford to overlook the foundational role of unpaid care work in sustaining formal labour markets and enabling economic productivity. Despite recent policy progress, a significant gap remains in India’s care infrastructure when compared to other emerging economies. Closing this gap begins with the accurate valuation of women’s unpaid labour, work that is essential, yet remains invisible to the state.
The Indian economy, poised to become the fourth largest globally, cannot afford to overlook the foundational role of unpaid care work in sustaining formal labour markets and enabling economic productivity.
The integration of satellite accounts, building on the time use surveys, represents a pragmatic and internationally validated approach to make such labour visible and measurable. As demonstrated in Mexico and South Korea, satellite accounts can serve as a powerful policy tool, translating statistical recognition into targeted interventions, improved care infrastructure, and greater social protection for women. These accounts not only provide robust data to inform gender-responsive budgeting but also serve as a basis for institutional reforms that redistribute care responsibilities within households and across society.
Ultimately, incorporating the economic value of unpaid care work into national accounting systems reinforces the principle that what is measured is valued. It challenges prevailing economic models that marginalise informal and gendered labour, and lays the groundwork for a more equitable and sustainable development trajectory. As India moves forward, the formal recognition of care work must be seen not merely as a symbolic gesture but as a strategic imperative to foster inclusive growth.
Tushna Elavia is a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Tushna Elavia is a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation ...
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