India entered its demographic dividend in 2005-06 with expected peak in 2040 creating high hopes and expectations of economic growth for the country. As much as the development of a nation depends on eclectic variables and conditions, women empowerment is an established essential element to propel this growth. The equal participation of women in the labour force can boost India’s GDP by 27 % as per IMF calculations. As it catalyses various development goals including SDGs, ensuring economic participation of women appears as a priority for a developing nation like India.
For India, the economic participation of women has been witnessing steady rise over the past few years as the Female Labour Force Participation Rate has recorded a rate of 41.7% in 2023-24 compared to 23.3% in 2017-18 as per the latest PLFS data. This growth, however impressive, remains well below the Male Labour Force Participation Rate of 77.2%. Moreover, it also staggers behind the global female Labour Force Participation Rate calculated by the World Bank at 50%. As India aims to achieve the vision of Viksit Bharat and to elevate to a USD7 Trillion economy by 2030, minimum 50 percent women need to become active part of the workforce as per a report by The Nudge Institute.
Among the reasons for low participation of women in economy, their engagement in domestic unpaid care activities emerges as most prominent and alarming as it indicates to absence of sufficient economic activities in this area and undermining of the labour performed by women. The total value of unpaid care work performed by Indian women equals to a massive 15% of GDP, with India featuring among the countries with highest disparity between men and women in engagement in unpaid care responsibilities. As per a recent report released by the International Labour Organization, nearly 53% women in India are out of the work force due to care obligations while for men this number is low at 1%. The same report also cites family and care related responsibilities as the reason behind the exclusion of 97.8 percent women out of the labour force. It is more concerning that even with higher level of education, employed women spend 6 times more working hours on unpaid care work than men as per the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Further, women located in urban areas have 9 times higher burden of unpaid care activities compared to men while rural women carry 8 times burden than men.
The World Bank describes care economy as “essential in daily life and a driver of economic growth, human capital development, and employment”. Its essentiality for economic participation of women makes it an urgent case to evolve into an ecosystem of paid economic activities. UN Women opines that formalizing the care economy would lead to reduction in female poverty in multiple ways for instance-extended social security cover, increase in availability of time and resources for skill development etc.
As India descends from its demographic dividend, the percentage of elderly and children in need of care services will constitute 20 and 18 percent of the total population respectively, which is expected to grow substantially by 2050. ILO estimates that a public investment equating to 2% of GDP in India could lead to creation of more than 10 million employment opportunities by 2030, with prominent access to women. While there are some robust legal mechanisms in place, such as Maternity Benefit Act, to accommodate the care services for working women, a more integrated approach towards redistribution of unpaid care work is yet to crystalize. The Supreme court in February 2024 recognized the monetary contributions of unpaid care work by women as ‘deemed income’. In April 2024, the Apex Court reiterated the constitutional entitlement of women under Article 15 of the Indian Constitution to participate in workforce and a duty of state to enable conditions for the same. Some courts around the globe have gone steps ahead and awarded compensation to women for unpaid care work delivered over the years.
With the legal recognition of the economic value and significance of care services, the government must explore various models to implement the ecosystem approach to cater to the economic and social requirements. Affordability, accessibility, qualitative superiority are some the aspects which need to be enshrined in the institutions, both public and private, offering and enabling care services. Investments in rebuilding care ecosystems can provide opportunities for public and private sectors to develop strategies for women led development. This also opens an ambit for proactive regulation to establish standards for the various sectors of the care industry and to ensure a seamless transition of the unpaid work into a just and fairly monetized economic activity.
India can leverage its experience in social development and utilizing public private partnerships to attain social progress goals. Community based models also have a high potential to sustain the need for infrastructure creation, skill development and induction of the workforce. Providing care related services within reach for women has already started with organizations like SEWA taking lead in providing child-care services and enabling employment opportunities for more than 2 million women engaged mostly in the informal economic activities.
The government has taken some steps towards transforming the care economy, most recent being in the budget 2025 by announcing a target to establish 200 daycare centres in hospitals with plans of gradual expansion over next three years. The upcoming and urgent priority for the policy makers in India should be to devise a strategy leveraging technology and infrastructure to create a cadre of skilled professionals with space for private sector to participate which could create long term impacts to attain gender parity. The 3R approach of Recognition, Reduction, and Redistribution of unpaid care work can set the course correction of gender justice and women empowerment in India by giving Nari-Shakti a meaningful nuance of freedom and opportunities.
The article was published with Financial Express on February 22, 2025.
