Care Economy and TU 101

This presentation examines how care work affects economic systems and gender equality in South Asia, using time-use data to inform policy changes across India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
The Care Economy and Time-Use Frameworks: Unlocking Gender Equality in South Asia
Welcome to this comprehensive exploration of the care economy and time-use frameworks in South Asia. Throughout this presentation, we will examine how unpaid and paid care work shapes economic systems, perpetuates gender inequality, and offers pathways to transformative policy change.
This analysis draws on cutting-edge research to illuminate the invisible backbone of our economies - the care work predominantly performed by women. We'll explore practical applications of time-use data to inform gender-responsive policies across India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
VR
by Varna Sri Raman
 
What Is the Care Economy?
The care economy comprises essential activities supporting human well-being across all life stages, forming the foundation for broader economic functioning and social development.
Definition & Scope
The care economy encompasses all activities and services that support the physical, emotional, and social well-being of individuals. It forms the foundation upon which all other economic activity depends.
Child-Focused Care
Includes feeding, bathing, education support, and emotional nurturing of children from infancy through adolescence, forming the basis for human capital development.
Adult & Elder Care
Encompasses assistance for elderly family members, persons with disabilities, and routine household maintenance that sustains working-age adults' productivity and well-being.
Paid vs Unpaid Care Work
Care work exists in two primary forms: paid work within formal employment sectors that contributes to GDP, and unpaid work performed in households that remains economically invisible. Both types are essential but undervalued, and predominantly performed by women.
Paid Care Work
Encompasses formal sector employment where care services are provided in exchange for wages. This includes healthcare professionals, teachers, childcare workers, and domestic help.
Subject to labor regulations and employment contracts
Contributes directly to GDP calculations
Predominantly female workforce, often undervalued
Unpaid Care Work
Refers to care activities performed without monetary compensation, typically within households or communities. This includes childcare, cooking, cleaning, and elder care by family members.
Invisible in economic calculations
Essential for human reproduction and social fabric
Disproportionately performed by women and girls
Scope of the Care Economy
The care economy encompasses five essential dimensions: nurturing children, supporting working adults, assisting elders, strengthening communities, and preserving our environment.
Child Development
Nurturing, educating, and raising the next generation through direct care, supervision, and emotional support.
Adult Care
Supporting working-age adults through meal preparation, laundry, home maintenance, and emotional support.
Elder Care
Assisting aging populations with healthcare needs, mobility support, medication management, and companionship.
Community Care
Contributing to collective well-being through volunteer work, community kitchens, and mutual aid networks.
Ecological Care
Maintaining environmental resources through sustainable practices that ensure long-term community well-being.
Global Perspective on Care Work
Women worldwide perform significantly more unpaid care work than men, with the largest disparities in South Asia and Middle East/North Africa regions. This work, while often unrecognized, is fundamental to economic systems and human wellbeing.
Unpaid care work forms the foundation of economies worldwide, contributing significantly to human well-being and economic productivity. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5.4 explicitly calls for recognizing and valuing unpaid care and domestic work through public services, infrastructure, and social protection policies.
Core Features of Care Work
Care work is fundamental yet often unrecognized, requiring intensive labor that disproportionately impacts women's economic opportunities.
Essential
Care work forms the foundation upon which all other economic activity depends. Without the reproduction and maintenance of the workforce through care, formal economic activities would collapse.
Often Invisible
Despite its critical importance, care work frequently remains unrecognized in economic measurements and policy considerations, particularly when performed without compensation in household settings.
Labor Intensive
Care work requires significant physical and emotional labor that cannot be easily automated or accelerated without compromising quality, creating what economists call "Baumol's cost disease."
Inequitably Distributed
Across societies, the responsibility for care work falls disproportionately on women and girls, constraining their participation in education, paid employment, and civic life.
How Is Care Work Measured?
Care work measurement relies on time-use surveys that capture direct care activities, supervisory responsibilities, and the difficult-to-quantify emotional labor involved in caregiving.
Time-Use Surveys
Structured data collection methods where participants record their activities throughout the day in predetermined time intervals, typically 15-30 minutes.
Routine Care Activities
Direct care activities like bathing children, cooking meals, and cleaning are measured as primary activities when they constitute the main task during a time period.
Supervisory Care
Passive supervision where adults must be present but may simultaneously engage in other activities, often captured as secondary activities in advanced surveys.
Emotional Labor
The mental and emotional aspects of care that are most difficult to quantify, including planning, worrying, and managing family relationships.
The Importance of Time-Use Frameworks
Time-use frameworks quantify unpaid care work, reveal social inequalities, and provide essential data for policy development and international comparisons.
Economic Visibility
Makes invisible work visible in economic terms
Uncovers Disparities
Reveals gender, class, and regional inequalities
Evidence-Based Policy
Provides concrete data for policy interventions
International Comparison
Enables cross-country analysis of progress
Time-use frameworks provide the methodological foundation for quantifying contributions otherwise invisible in traditional economic metrics like GDP. By systematically documenting how individuals allocate their time across different activities, these frameworks reveal the enormous scale of unpaid care work that sustains households and communities.
Introduction to Time-Use Surveys
Time-use surveys track how people allocate their time across activities, evolved from early 20th century origins to standardized UN methodologies, and have been implemented across South Asia to varying degrees.
History and Development
Time-use surveys emerged in the early 20th century but gained prominence in the 1970s with feminist economists highlighting their value for measuring unpaid work. Today, they follow internationally standardized methodologies developed by the UN Statistical Division.
Methodology
Modern time-use surveys employ either time diaries (where respondents record activities throughout the day) or stylized questions (asking about time spent on specific activities). They typically classify activities using the International Classification of Activities for Time-Use Statistics (ICATUS).
Implementation in South Asia
India conducted its first national time-use survey in 2019, covering 138,000 households. Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan have implemented smaller-scale or pilot surveys, while Sri Lanka incorporated time-use components into broader household surveys.
Gendered Patterns in Time-Use Data
Women in South Asia spend significantly more time on unpaid care work (childcare, cooking, cleaning, elder care) while men dedicate more hours to paid work and leisure activities, revealing persistent gender inequalities in time distribution.
Time-use data consistently reveals stark gender disparities in how unpaid care work is distributed. Women carry the majority of the unpaid care burden globally, with the gap particularly pronounced in South Asia. This data exposes not only the gender inequalities in domestic labor but also their consequences for women's participation in paid work and leisure activities.
The South Asian Context: Culture, Economy, and Law
South Asian gender disparities in care work are reinforced through three interconnected systems: cultural norms that assign caregiving to women, economic structures with large informal sectors, and legal frameworks that maintain traditional gender roles.
Cultural and Social Norms
Deep-rooted gender roles in South Asian societies assign care responsibilities primarily to women and girls. These patriarchal norms idealize women as caregivers and homemakers, while men are expected to be breadwinners and decision-makers in the public sphere.
Economic Structure
The region's large informal economy (80-90% of workers) lacks regulated working conditions and social protections. This creates a double burden for women who perform unpaid care at home while often working in precarious, low-paid jobs in the informal sector.
Legal Framework
Despite constitutional guarantees of equality, legal systems across South Asia often reinforce gender disparities through personal laws governing marriage, inheritance, and property rights. Social protection schemes frequently overlook the specific challenges faced by women caregivers.
Women in India perform 10x more unpaid care work than men, contributing an estimated 15-17% to GDP despite minimal institutional recognition.
Care Economy in India
Scale of Unpaid Care
Indian women perform 312 minutes of unpaid care work daily compared to men's 29 minutes
Economic Value
Estimated at 15-17% of India's GDP when monetized
Institutional Recognition
Growing policy attention through national time-use surveys and maternity benefits
Unpaid and underpaid care work forms the economic backbone of India, sustaining households and communities while enabling formal economic activities. The 2019 National Time Use Survey revealed that Indian women spend nearly 10 times more time on unpaid domestic services for household members than men, highlighting the enormous gender disparity in care responsibilities.
Care Economy in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka
Women across Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka spend 4-5 times more hours on unpaid care work than men. Each country has implemented different policy approaches, with Nepal making the most progressive constitutional recognition of unpaid care work.
Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka show similar gendered patterns in unpaid care work, though with less comprehensive data coverage than India. Each country has taken different policy approaches, with Nepal's 2015 constitution notably recognizing unpaid care work as contributing to national economic development—a progressive stance in the region.
Who Provides Care?
Care work in South Asia primarily falls on women across generations, with mothers, young girls, and grandmothers all playing crucial roles in a gender-defined system that impacts education, careers, and perpetuates inequality.
Mothers and Women of Reproductive Age
Women aged 18-45 provide the majority of childcare and domestic services, often sacrificing educational and career opportunities. Cultural expectations firmly place responsibility for child development on mothers.
Girls and Young Women
Female children often assist with household work and sibling care from an early age, contributing significantly to family care needs at the expense of education and leisure. This perpetuates intergenerational cycles of gender inequality.
Grandmothers and Older Women
As more women enter the workforce, grandmothers increasingly provide childcare support. Elder women also become care recipients as populations age, creating complex intergenerational care dynamics.
Paid Care Labor Market in South Asia
South Asia's care labor market is structured in layers of formality, with most workers in informal positions facing low wages and minimal protections. The sector is characterized by high migration rates as workers seek better opportunities.
Formal Professional Care
Doctors, nurses, certified teachers with benefits and protections
Semi-formal Care
Daycare workers, elder care aides with limited protections
Informal Domestic Work
Housekeepers, nannies, cooks with minimal rights or benefits
Precarious Care Work
Day laborers, part-time help with no security or protections
The paid care labor market in South Asia is characterized by high levels of informality, low wages, and minimal benefits. Domestic workers, who form the largest segment of paid care workers, often work without contracts or social protection. A growing trend is migration for care jobs, with workers moving from rural to urban areas or internationally to countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Women in South Asia shoulder a vastly disproportionate burden of unpaid care work compared to men, with Indian women spending nearly 7 times more time on these essential but economically invisible activities.
Time Allocation: Unpaid Care Work by Gender
351
Minutes/Day
Average time Indian women spend on unpaid care work daily
52
Minutes/Day
Average time Indian men spend on unpaid care work daily
6.7x
Gender Gap
Ratio of women's to men's time spent on unpaid care
42%
Total Work
Percentage of women's total work time that is unpaid and uncounted
Time-use data reveals striking gender disparities in unpaid care work across South Asia. In India, women spend over 5 hours daily on unpaid domestic and care activities, while men contribute less than 1 hour. This pattern is consistent across the region, with Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka showing similar disproportionate burdens on women.
Economic Value of Unpaid Care
Unpaid care work represents 13-17% of GDP across South Asian countries, with India's contribution valued at approximately $400 billion annually. This massive economic contribution remains invisible in national accounts despite being fundamental to all other economic activities.
If monetized using replacement cost methods, unpaid care work would add trillions to the global GDP. In India alone, women's unpaid work is valued at up to 17% of GDP—approximately $400 billion annually. This enormous economic contribution remains largely invisible in national accounts and policy considerations, despite forming a critical foundation for all other economic activities.
The Triple Burden: Care, Paid Work, Community
Women in South Asia shoulder three interconnected responsibilities: household care, income generation, and community service. This creates persistent time scarcity and limits personal development opportunities.
Domestic Care
Cooking, cleaning, childcare and elder care responsibilities within the household
Paid Employment
Formal or informal work to generate household income and financial security
Community Labor
Volunteer work, participation in self-help groups, religious duties, and civic responsibilities
Constant Negotiation
Continuous balancing and prioritization among competing demands with limited resources
Women in South Asia frequently juggle three distinct workloads: unpaid domestic care, income-generating employment, and community obligations. This "triple burden" leads to extreme time poverty, stress, and reduced opportunities for rest, skill development, and political participation, creating a cycle of disadvantage that is difficult to escape.
Time Poverty: What Is It?
Time poverty occurs when individuals lack sufficient discretionary time after fulfilling work and care obligations, leading to negative health, economic, and social consequences.
Definition
Time poverty refers to the lack of discretionary time after meeting necessary obligations of paid work, unpaid care, and personal care. It represents having insufficient time for rest, leisure, education, or civic participation after fulfilling essential responsibilities.
Measurement
Quantified through time-use surveys that identify individuals working excessive hours (typically >10.5 hours daily on combined paid and unpaid work) or those with minimal leisure time (less than 1-2 hours daily).
Consequences
Time poverty correlates strongly with stress, poor physical and mental health, reduced economic advancement opportunities, and lower participation in community decision-making processes, particularly for women and girls.
Why Is the Care Economy Invisible?
The care economy remains invisible due to flawed economic measurements, social norms that devalue women's work, institutional blindness to care's importance, and insufficient research data—all systematically excluding vital unpaid labor from economic recognition.
Economic Measurement Gaps
Traditional GDP calculations exclude unpaid household production, rendering vast amounts of economically valuable work invisible in national accounts.
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Social Norms and Devaluation
Cultural expectations frame women's care work as natural, instinctive, and obligatory rather than skilled labor deserving recognition and compensation.
Institutional Blindness
Policy frameworks and organizational structures systematically overlook the role of care in sustaining economic activities and human welfare.
Knowledge and Data Gaps
Limited time-use surveys and research in developing contexts perpetuate misconceptions about the scale and importance of care work.
Revisiting the Concept of Productive and Reproductive Labor
The economy functions through two interdependent systems: market-oriented productive labor that's counted in GDP, and the essential but largely invisible reproductive labor that sustains workers and society.
Productive Labor
Traditionally defined as market-oriented work that produces goods and services for exchange and profit within the formal economy. This includes:
Manufacturing and industrial production
Service sector work with direct compensation
Agricultural production for market sale
Recognized and measured in GDP calculations
Reproductive Labor
Work that reproduces and maintains the labor force, ensuring society's continuation. This encompasses:
Childbearing and raising the next generation
Maintaining current workers through food, hygiene, emotional support
Community sustenance activities
Largely uncounted in economic measurements
Feminist economists challenge this dichotomy, arguing that reproductive labor forms the essential foundation for all productive activity. Without the care economy's contributions, the formal, market-oriented economy could not function or sustain itself.
Consequences of Ignoring Care Work
Overlooking unpaid care work distorts economic measurements, misaligns resource allocation, perpetuates gender inequality across generations, and increases vulnerability during crises.
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Undervalued Economic Contribution
National accounts and productivity measures systematically underestimate women's economic contributions by excluding unpaid care work. This creates distorted understandings of economic activity and growth patterns that inform policy decisions.
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Skewed Resource Allocation
Budget priorities and development programs overemphasize formal sector investments while neglecting infrastructure and services that would reduce unpaid care burdens, such as public water systems, childcare facilities, and elder care support.
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Intergenerational Inequality
Girls from care-burdened households often sacrifice educational opportunities to assist with domestic responsibilities, perpetuating cycles of gender inequality and limiting human capital development across generations.
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Crisis Vulnerability
Without recognition and support, care systems become fragile during economic downturns, health crises, or natural disasters, exacerbating hardships for the most vulnerable populations.
Care Economy and Gender Inequality: A Recap
Care responsibilities disproportionately carried by women create and reinforce gender inequalities across multiple dimensions of life, from economic opportunity to personal wellbeing.
Time Inequality
Women's disproportionate care burden restricts time for education, paid work, and rest
Economic Inequality
Limited labor market participation, wage gaps, and career interruptions due to care responsibilities
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Decision-Making Power
Reduced time for civic engagement and political representation
Physical and Mental Wellbeing
Stress, exhaustion, and health consequences from overwork and insufficient rest
The unequal distribution of care responsibilities forms a fundamental barrier to gender equality across economic, political, and social dimensions. The care economy simultaneously reflects existing gender inequalities and reinforces them through its structure and operation, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of disadvantage for women and girls.
Intersectionality: Class, Caste, Location
Care work experiences vary significantly across intersecting social dimensions. Class determines who can outsource care work, caste hierarchies in South Asia create layered inequalities, and geographic location affects access to infrastructure that could reduce care burdens.
Class Dimensions
Socioeconomic status profoundly shapes care arrangements and burdens. Affluent households can outsource care work to domestic workers, while women in poor households bear heavier direct care responsibilities with fewer resources and support systems.
For middle-class women entering the workforce, balancing career and care expectations creates distinct pressures without adequate institutional support.
Caste and Care
Caste hierarchies in South Asia create additional layers of inequality in care work. Lower-caste women often perform the most stigmatized and physically demanding aspects of care work for upper-caste households, including cleaning and sanitation tasks.
Employer-employee care relationships frequently reinforce existing social hierarchies, with complex power dynamics embedded in intimate household labor.
Rural-Urban Differences
Geographic location determines access to care infrastructure and support. Rural women typically face greater time poverty due to limited access to water, electricity, and transportation infrastructure that could reduce care burdens.
Urban migrants often experience disrupted family care networks, creating new vulnerabilities and care deficits.
Urban vs Rural Care Dynamics
Rural and urban contexts create distinctly different care economies, with variations in infrastructure access, family structures, time use patterns, and care monetization across these settings.
The urban-rural divide creates distinct care economies with different challenges and opportunities. Rural areas face heavier manual care burdens due to poor infrastructure, while urban settings feature more nuclear families with rising paid care needs but continuing female-dominated responsibility patterns.
Social Norms Shaping Care
South Asian social institutions systematically reinforce gendered care expectations through cultural traditions, educational practices, and economic structures that normalize women's caregiving roles.
Cultural Institutions
Marriage customs, religious practices, and family traditions in South Asia strongly reinforce the association between femininity and caregiving. Cultural products from films to textbooks depict women as natural caregivers whose primary fulfillment comes through nurturing others.
Education Systems
Formal and informal education transmits gendered expectations about care responsibilities. School curricula often contain gendered representations of family roles, while girls receive early socialization into care responsibilities through household chores and sibling care.
Economic Structures
Labor markets reinforce care norms through gendered occupational segregation, with women concentrated in care-adjacent sectors. Workplace policies frequently assume women will manage family care responsibilities alongside employment.
Key Time-Use Survey Insights From India
Indian women spend significantly more time on unpaid domestic services and caregiving, while men participate more in formal employment, highlighting a substantial gender gap in time allocation.
India's National Statistical Office conducted the country's first nationwide time-use survey in 2019, covering 138,000 households. The results revealed that only 22% of Indian women participate in the formal labor force, while women spend nearly 10 times more time than men on unpaid domestic services. This comprehensive data has proven pivotal for developing gender-responsive policies.
International Benchmarking: OECD, ILO Approaches
Leading international organizations have developed frameworks to measure, value, and address unpaid care work through standardized methodologies and comprehensive policy approaches.
OECD Framework
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has developed standardized methodologies for time-use surveys and satellite accounts that value unpaid work. Their approach emphasizes the "social organization of care" through both public and private provisions.
Regular time-use survey implementation
Standardized methodologies for valuation
Policy integration through gender budgeting
ILO's 5Rs Framework
The International Labour Organization promotes the "5Rs Framework for Decent Care Work" which provides a comprehensive approach to addressing unpaid care work challenges globally.
Recognize unpaid care work through measurement
Reduce difficult and time-consuming care tasks
Redistribute responsibilities more equitably
Reward care workers adequately
Represent caregivers in policy decisions
East Asian Models
Countries like South Korea and Japan have implemented advanced time-use statistics and subsequently developed policy reforms to address care deficits. These countries have moved toward universal childcare and elder care systems.
Long-term care insurance programs
Public childcare infrastructure
Work-life balance legislation
UN, ILO and SDG Guidance on Care Economy
International frameworks from the UN and ILO provide guidance on recognizing, measuring, and protecting care work through policy standards and monitoring mechanisms.
SDG Target 5.4
"Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure, and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate."
Measurement Indicators
Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age, and location. This requires regular time-use surveys with standardized methodologies to track progress and inform policy interventions.
ILO Conventions
Convention 189 on Domestic Workers (2011) and Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment (2019) provide international standards for protecting paid care workers' rights and dignity in formal and informal settings.
UN Women Framework
The "Triple R" framework—Recognize, Reduce, and Redistribute care work—provides a policy structure for addressing care economy challenges through integrated approaches at household, community, and national levels.
Recent Policy Developments in South Asia
South Asian countries have implemented various care-focused policies including workplace childcare requirements, domestic worker protections, elder care legislation, and experimental social protection programs.
Workplace Childcare Mandates
India's Maternity Benefit Amendment Act (2017) requires companies with 50+ employees to provide crèche facilities. Bangladesh's Labour Act requires workplaces with 40+ women workers to provide childcare facilities.
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Domestic Worker Protections
Kerala and Maharashtra (India) have established Domestic Workers Welfare Boards. Bangladesh has developed a National Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy (2015), though implementation remains limited.
Elder Care Initiatives
India's Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act (2007) legally mandates children to care for elderly parents. Sri Lanka has introduced a National Secretariat for Elders and limited home-based care services.
Social Protection Pilots
Experimental programs across the region provide targeted support for women caregivers, including conditional cash transfers in Pakistan and Nepal that recognize women's care responsibilities.
Case Study: Employer-Provided Childcare in India
Despite a 2017 law mandating workplace childcare facilities for companies with 50+ employees, implementation remains limited with only 33% compliance. Successful programs show improved retention of women employees, though benefits primarily reach formal sector workers.
Policy Framework
The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act of 2017 mandates that establishments with 50 or more employees must provide crèche facilities, either on-site or within accessible distance. The law aims to support working mothers and enhance women's workforce participation.
Implementation Reality
A 2019 survey by TeamLease found that only 33% of eligible companies had established compliant childcare facilities. Common challenges include space constraints, operational costs, and lack of enforcement mechanisms.
Success Factors
Companies reporting positive outcomes typically integrated childcare into broader diversity initiatives, provided quality care rather than minimal compliance, and ensured leadership commitment to supporting working parents.
Early Impact Evidence
Firms with well-implemented childcare facilities report 25-40% improvements in women's retention after maternity leave and increased applications from women professionals. However, benefits remain concentrated among formal sector employees, excluding the majority of women workers.
Case Study: Women Domestic Workers in Delhi
Delhi's 1.3 million domestic workers, 90% of whom are women, face a double burden of care work while earning less than half the minimum wage with no benefits or job security.
1.3M
Workers
Estimated domestic workers in Delhi-NCR region
90%
Women
Percentage of domestic workers who are female
₹45
Hourly Wage
Average hourly rate, less than 50% of minimum wage
14hr
Double Duty
Hours spent on paid and unpaid work combined
A 2019 study by the Institute of Social Studies Trust found that women domestic workers in Delhi face a double burden of care—performing paid care work in employers' homes while managing unpaid care responsibilities in their own households. With limited bargaining power and few legal protections, they work long hours for wages well below minimum standards, with no paid leave, health benefits, or job security.
Catalyzing Care Enterprises
Innovative business models are transforming care work through time-saving technologies, digital platforms, and community-based approaches that create decent work opportunities while addressing care needs.
Time-Saving Technology
Social enterprises are developing affordable, time-saving devices specifically designed for low-income contexts. Improved cookstoves, water filters, and small electrical appliances can significantly reduce time spent on routine care tasks, particularly in rural areas with limited infrastructure.
Digital Care Platforms
Tech startups are creating mobile applications that connect care seekers with providers, formalize domestic work arrangements, and streamline care coordination. These platforms aim to improve employment conditions while making care services more accessible and accountable.
Community Care Cooperatives
Women in both urban and rural settings are establishing cooperative childcare facilities that provide quality care while creating decent work opportunities. These community-based models often integrate early childhood education with affordable care services.
Formalization and Decent Work in Paid Care
Care work formalization involves legal recognition, worker protections, social benefits, and professional development pathways to transform undervalued labor into decent employment opportunities.
Registration and Recognition
Formal identification and inclusion in labor statistics
Legal Protections
Standard contracts, minimum wage, working hour limits
Social Security Access
Health insurance, pension contributions, paid leave
Skill Recognition
Training, certification, and career advancement paths
Formalizing paid care work requires developing stronger regulatory frameworks that recognize the professional nature of care services. Currently, domestic workers and many childcare providers operate in legal gray areas without employment contracts, minimum wage guarantees, or social protection coverage. Country-specific domestic worker laws, such as those being debated in India and implemented in limited forms in Bangladesh, represent important steps toward decent work in the care sector.
Barriers to Care Economy Investment
Key obstacles include insufficient data, informal market structures, inadequate legal frameworks, and cultural devaluation of care work.
Data and Measurement Gaps
Limited time-use data collection, inconsistent methodologies, and inadequate economic valuation of care work make it difficult to demonstrate the investment case for care economy interventions. This evidence gap hinders policy attention and resource allocation.
Informal Sector Dominance
The prevalence of informal arrangements in care provision creates challenges for regulation, quality control, and investment structuring. The absence of formal entities and market mechanisms complicates traditional investment approaches.
Weak Legal Enforcement
Even where progressive laws exist, implementation often falters due to inadequate monitoring systems, limited resources for enforcement, and cultural resistance to formalizing care relationships within households.
Social Devaluation
Persistent cultural perceptions of care as low-skilled "women's work" rather than essential economic infrastructure undermine political will and private sector interest in care economy investments.
The Business Case for Investing in Care
Care infrastructure investments drive economic growth through increased workforce participation, improved productivity, and substantial returns on investment for both businesses and the broader economy.
10%
FLFP Increase
Potential rise in female labor force participation with childcare access
3.5%
GDP Growth
Projected GDP boost from closing gender gaps in labor force
40%
Retention
Improvement in employee retention with employer-supported care
8:1
ROI
Return on investment ratio for quality early childhood programs
Investing in care infrastructure yields substantial economic returns through multiple channels. By enabling women's workforce participation, businesses access larger talent pools and benefit from greater workforce diversity. Studies indicate that childcare access can increase female labor force participation by up to 10 percentage points. Additionally, companies providing care support report significant improvements in employee productivity, reduced absenteeism, and stronger talent retention.
Well-designed infrastructure reduces women's unpaid care burden by saving time and energy across essential services, creating pathways to economic opportunity.
Gender-Responsive Public Infrastructure
Water Supply
Piped water to households or well-designed community access points can save women and girls up to 4 hours daily in rural areas. Time savings translate directly to educational and economic opportunities.
Sanitation Facilities
Household toilets and safe public facilities reduce time spent accompanying family members to distant locations and decrease caregiving burdens related to sanitation-linked illnesses.
Electrification
Reliable electricity enables labor-saving appliances, extends productive hours, and reduces time spent gathering traditional fuels—activities primarily performed by women and girls.
Transportation
Safe, affordable, and accessible public transportation designed with care mobility in mind (accommodating strollers, groceries, elderly) significantly reduces the time and energy costs of care activities.
Redistributing Care: Role of Men and Boys
Engaging men and boys in care work requires transforming social norms, implementing supportive policies, and building practical caregiving skills to create more equitable distribution of household responsibilities.
Challenging Gender Norms
Social campaigns and education programs that question traditional masculinity definitions and celebrate men's care involvement can shift perceptions. Initiatives like India's "Men Care" program use community dialogue, media campaigns, and school interventions to normalize male participation in care work.
Policy Enablers
Paternity leave policies encourage men's involvement from early parenthood, establishing patterns of shared responsibility. Though limited in South Asia, countries like India are expanding paternity leave in the formal sector, with some private companies leading with progressive policies.
Skills Development
Practical training in care skills for men and boys through school curricula, community programs, and workplace initiatives builds confidence and competence in caregiving activities traditionally considered "women's domain."
Leveraging Technology in the Care Economy
Technology is transforming care work through digital platforms, remote services, labor-saving devices, and coordination tools that formalize arrangements, reduce time burdens, and make care work more visible.
Digital Platforms
Mobile applications connecting care providers with households are formalizing domestic work arrangements. Platforms like BookMyBai and Helpers Near Me in India verify worker identities, standardize wages, and facilitate transparent relationships, though questions about worker protections remain.
Remote Care Delivery
Telemedicine, distance learning, and virtual administrative services reduce time spent on care-related travel. During COVID-19, India's National Digital Health Mission and expanded EdTech platforms demonstrated the potential for technology to alleviate care burdens.
Time-Saving Devices
Appropriate technology solutions adapted for South Asian contexts can dramatically reduce manual care labor. Programs promoting affordable washing machines, pressure cookers, and water filters have demonstrated significant time savings for women in rural and urban low-income settings.
Care Management Systems
Digital tools for coordinating family care responsibilities make care work more visible and facilitate more equitable sharing. Calendar applications, task management systems, and care coordination platforms help families track and distribute care responsibilities.
Time-Use Data for Policy Design
Time-use surveys reveal care provision patterns across demographics, enabling evidence-based policy interventions that address real-world caregiving needs.
Data Collection
Comprehensive time-use surveys capturing both primary and secondary activities
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Analysis
Identifying patterns and disparities by gender, location, and socioeconomic status
Policy Formulation
Designing targeted interventions based on empirical care patterns
Implementation
Executing programs with clear monitoring mechanisms
Evaluation
Measuring impact on time allocation and gender equality
Time-use data provides essential evidence for designing effective care policies. When properly analyzed, this data reveals specific patterns in care provision across different demographics and contexts, enabling policymakers to develop targeted interventions. Examples include timing public transportation schedules to accommodate caregiving routines, locating childcare facilities based on commuting patterns, and designing social protection programs that recognize unpaid care commitments.
Satellite accounts extend national economic measurements by valuing unpaid care work, with some countries finding this work represents 20-23% of GDP when properly accounted for.
Integrating Care into National Accounts
Satellite Accounts Methodology
Satellite accounts are supplementary statistical frameworks that exist alongside core national accounts. They capture economic activities typically excluded from GDP calculations, such as unpaid household production.
Time-Use Valuation
Time spent on unpaid work is valued using either replacement cost (what it would cost to hire someone to perform the activity) or opportunity cost (the market value of the time provider's labor if employed).
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Regional Examples
Thailand and Mexico have developed household satellite accounts that value unpaid work at approximately 20% and 23% of GDP respectively. These accounts inform policy priorities and resource allocation decisions.
Institutional Integration
For maximum impact, satellite accounts should be regularly produced by national statistical offices and referenced in budget planning processes and economic policy formulation.
Macroeconomic Benefits of Care Investment
Care sector investments create more jobs per dollar than traditional infrastructure, generate substantial economic returns, and enhance workforce participation.
Public investment in care infrastructure generates substantial economic returns through multiple channels. OECD estimates suggest that every $1 invested creates up to $2.50 in GDP growth. Care sectors are particularly job-intensive, creating more employment per dollar invested than traditional infrastructure spending. Additionally, quality care services enhance human capital development and enable greater labor force participation, especially for women.
Childcare Systems: Best Practices
Effective childcare models include government-run systems, employer-supported programs, community-based arrangements, and public-private partnerships, each offering unique advantages for different contexts.
Public Provision Models
Government-run childcare systems provide universal access regardless of parent employment status. India's Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) represents the world's largest public early childhood program, though quality varies significantly across locations.
Employer-Supported Care
Workplace childcare facilities, flexible scheduling, and caregiving subsidies help employees balance work and family responsibilities. Tata Consultancy Services in India has established high-quality on-site childcare centers across multiple locations, reporting improved retention rates.
Community-Based Approaches
Cooperative childcare arrangements managed by community members offer culturally appropriate, accessible care options. Mobile Creches in India provides childcare at construction sites where many women work, combining care services with nutrition and education components.
Public-Private Partnerships
Collaborative models leverage government standards and funding with private sector efficiency and innovation. Kerala's Kudumbashree Mission partners with local self-government institutions to establish community-run creches that maintain quality standards while creating employment.
Care Economy and Social Protection
Social protection systems are evolving to recognize and support unpaid care work through pension credits, universal benefits, and direct financial assistance programs across South Asia.
Recognizing Caregivers in Social Security
Traditional social protection systems often link benefits to formal employment, disadvantaging those engaged primarily in unpaid care work. Progressive approaches include:
Pension credits for years spent in full-time caregiving
Universal basic pensions regardless of work history
Health insurance coverage for family caregivers
Nepal's universal social pension system and India's evolving Atal Pension Yojana show potential for more inclusive approaches.
Cash Transfers and Care Support
Direct financial assistance can support caregiving activities while recognizing their economic value. Promising models include:
Conditional cash transfers tied to children's health and education
Caregiver allowances for those supporting persons with disabilities
Maternity and paternity benefits for infant care periods
Pakistan's Benazir Income Support Programme and India's Maternity Benefit Programme represent early steps in this direction, though coverage and benefit adequacy remain limited.
Women's Labor Force Participation: Missed Opportunity
South Asia's exceptionally low female labor participation represents a $4.3 trillion economic opportunity, with unpaid care work being a primary barrier to women's employment.
South Asia has among the world's lowest female labor force participation rates, representing an enormous missed economic opportunity. Research consistently identifies the unequal burden of unpaid care work as a principal barrier to women's employment. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that achieving gender parity in labor markets could add $12 trillion to global GDP by 2025, with South Asia standing to gain $4.3 trillion if women participated in the economy equally with men.
COVID-19: Exacerbating the Care Crisis
The pandemic intensified women's care burdens across multiple dimensions: increased childcare responsibilities due to school closures, shifted healthcare duties to homes, and heightened economic vulnerability for paid care workers in the informal sector.
School Closures and Educational Care
Extended school and childcare facility closures during the pandemic dramatically increased the educational care responsibilities of parents, with mothers typically absorbing most of this additional work. In India, women reported spending an average of 4.5 additional hours daily on childcare during lockdowns.
Healthcare Displacement
As healthcare systems became overwhelmed, many medical services shifted to households, with women assuming increased responsibility for monitoring symptoms, administering treatments, and providing nursing care to family members, often without adequate training or support.
Care Worker Vulnerability
Paid care workers, particularly domestic workers and childcare providers in the informal sector, experienced widespread job losses and income insecurity. In India, an estimated 80% of domestic workers lost employment during initial lockdowns, with limited access to social protection.
The care economy requires a comprehensive "5R" policy approach: Recognize, Reduce, Redistribute, Reward, and Represent care work to create more equitable systems.
The Way Forward: Policy Levers
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Recognize Care Work
Measure, value, and include in economic planning
Reduce Care Burdens
Invest in time-saving infrastructure and services
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Redistribute Care Responsibilities
Promote shared responsibility across genders and institutions
Reward Care Work
Ensure decent compensation and conditions for paid care
Represent Caregivers
Include care workers' voices in policy decisions
A comprehensive policy framework for the care economy must address multiple dimensions simultaneously. Investing in public care infrastructure—from childcare centers to elder care facilities and community services—represents a foundational step toward recognizing care as essential social infrastructure. Equally important is ensuring that care responsibilities are redistributed more equitably across genders, generations, and institutions rather than remaining disproportionately on women's shoulders.
Political Voice and Representation in the Care Economy
Care workers are organizing for recognition despite challenges, women in leadership positions prioritize care policies, and inclusive decision-making mechanisms are emerging across South Asia.
Organizing Care Workers
Despite legal and practical challenges, care workers across South Asia are developing organizational structures to amplify their collective voice. The National Domestic Workers' Movement in India has over 2 million members across 18 states, advocating for legal recognition and improved working conditions through grassroots mobilization, legal awareness, and policy engagement.
Women's Leadership in Care Policy
Evidence suggests that women in political leadership positions are more likely to prioritize care-related policies. India's 33% reservation for women in local government (Panchayati Raj) has shown that female representatives often allocate more resources to water infrastructure, healthcare, and educational facilities—investments that directly reduce care burdens.
Care-Inclusive Decision-Making
Effective policy requires mechanisms that ensure caregivers' perspectives inform design and implementation. Gender-responsive budgeting initiatives in Bangladesh, Nepal, and India are creating formal channels to assess policy impacts on unpaid care work, though implementation remains uneven.
Partnerships for Change
Effective transformation of the care economy requires coordinated action across multiple sectors, with each stakeholder playing distinct but complementary roles in recognizing, reducing, and redistributing care work.
Government
Policy frameworks, regulation, public investment in care infrastructure, and social protection systems that recognize care workers and recipients.
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Private Sector
Family-friendly workplace policies, employer-supported childcare, care leave provisions, and investment in care enterprises and innovations.
Civil Society
Advocacy, community-based care solutions, research, monitoring policy implementation, and challenging restrictive gender norms around care.
International Organizations
Technical assistance, funding, research, and policy frameworks that elevate care economy considerations in development agendas.
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Communities
Collective care arrangements, intergenerational support systems, and changing social norms around care responsibilities.
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Data Needs
Comprehensive data collection through improved surveys, indicators, and analysis is essential for effective care economy policy development and implementation.
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Enhanced Time-Use Surveys
Develop more frequent, comprehensive time-use surveys with improved methodologies for capturing simultaneous activities, supervisory care, and emotional labor. Standardize international classification systems to enable cross-country comparisons and trend analysis.
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Care-Sensitive Indicators
Integrate care-related metrics into standard development indicators, labor force surveys, and poverty measurements. This includes indicators on time poverty, care infrastructure access, and caregiving responsibilities by gender.
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Disaggregated Analysis
Ensure all care economy data collection and analysis disaggregates results by gender, age, location, socioeconomic status, and other relevant dimensions to reveal intersectional patterns and target interventions effectively.
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Impact Evaluation
Implement rigorous evaluation of care policies and programs to build evidence on what works in different contexts. Assess both immediate outcomes and longer-term impacts on gender equality, economic participation, and human capital development.
Youth and the Future of Care
Youth are reshaping care work through educational programs challenging gender stereotypes, youth-led community initiatives promoting shared responsibilities, and digital tools enabling equitable distribution of household tasks.
Education for Gender Equity
Schools provide critical opportunities to challenge gender stereotypes around care and establish new norms before adulthood. Gender-transformative curricula that teach all children domestic skills, caregiving competencies, and critical thinking about gender roles show promising results in pilot programs across India, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
Youth-Led Change
Youth organizations and movements increasingly integrate care responsibility awareness into leadership development and community service programs. Initiatives like India's Youth for Gender Equality engage young people as ambassadors for change within their families and communities, promoting shared domestic responsibilities.
Digital Natives Transforming Care
Technology-savvy younger generations are adopting digital tools that facilitate more equitable distribution of care work. Applications for household task management, calendar coordination, and care tracking enable more transparent approaches to family responsibilities.
Innovations: Promising Solutions from the Region
South Asian countries have developed innovative care solutions addressing childcare, financial empowerment, community cooperation, and elder care needs while creating economic opportunities.
Mobile Creches (India)
This pioneering organization provides childcare services at construction sites, where many women work as laborers. The model brings quality care, nutrition, and early education directly to workplaces, enabling mothers to work while children receive appropriate care. Since 1969, Mobile Creches has reached over 750,000 children across India.
Digital Wage Payments (Bangladesh)
H&M's garment factories in Bangladesh have implemented digital wage payments directly to workers' mobile accounts, giving women greater control over their earnings. This financial inclusion innovation has increased women's decision-making power over household expenditures, including the ability to purchase care services or time-saving appliances.
Rotating Care Cooperatives (Nepal)
In rural Nepal, women have adapted traditional community cooperation systems (parma) to establish rotating childcare arrangements. Groups of 5-8 families take turns providing supervised care, allowing women to engage in economic activities or rest while ensuring children receive consistent attention and early stimulation.
Elder Care Entrepreneurship (Sri Lanka)
HelpAge Sri Lanka has developed a model training older women as professional caregivers for other elderly individuals. This innovation addresses both the care needs of an aging population and creates income-generating opportunities for older women with caregiving skills but limited formal employment options.
Global Momentum: Care Economy Moving up the Agenda
Since 2016, the care economy has gained increasing international recognition through UN initiatives, ILO frameworks, G20 commitments, and COVID-19 recovery plans, establishing it as a critical factor in women's economic empowerment.
UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment (2016)
Identified the "care economy" as one of seven drivers for women's economic empowerment, generating international attention and policy recommendations.
ILO's Care Work and Care Jobs Report (2018)
Landmark global analysis quantifying care work's economic value and establishing the "5R Framework" for policy action that has been widely adopted.
G20 Ministerial Declaration on Women's Empowerment (2019-2020)
Explicitly recognized unpaid care work as a barrier to gender equality and committed to addressing unequal distribution through policy measures.
COVID-19 Recovery Plans (2020-2022)
Pandemic spotlighted care crisis, leading countries including India to incorporate care economy considerations in national recovery strategies.
The care economy underpins social and economic development by supporting human potential, enabling workforce participation, advancing gender equality, and building community resilience.
Summary: The Critical Role of the Care Economy
Foundation for Human Development
Care work nurtures capabilities and potential from childhood through adulthood
Enabler of Economic Participation
Care services and redistribution allow full workforce engagement
Central to Gender Equality
Addressing care inequalities is essential for women's empowerment
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Core Social Infrastructure
Strong care systems build resilient, adaptive communities
The care economy forms an essential foundation for sustainable, resilient, and inclusive economic growth. By recognizing care as critical infrastructure rather than a private family responsibility, policymakers can simultaneously address gender inequality, enhance human capital development, and increase overall economic productivity. Investing in the care economy represents not merely a social welfare expenditure but a strategic economic investment with significant returns.
Call to Action: Recognize, Reduce, Redistribute, Reward, Represent
The 5R framework provides a comprehensive approach to addressing care economy challenges through measurement, infrastructure investment, equitable distribution, fair compensation, and inclusive representation.
Recognize
Implement regular time-use surveys and satellite accounts to measure care work's contribution to the economy. Incorporate these metrics into national planning, budgeting, and policy decisions.
Reduce
Invest in public infrastructure—water, sanitation, electricity, transportation—that reduces the time and energy intensity of unpaid care work, particularly in underserved communities.
Redistribute
Develop policies and programs that incentivize more equitable sharing of care responsibilities between women and men, households and the state, through parental leave, flexible work, and public care services.
Reward
Ensure decent work conditions, fair compensation, and social protection for paid care workers through formalization, minimum wage enforcement, and skill recognition programs.
Represent
Include care workers' organizations and representatives in policy development, ensuring their voices shape the decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods.
Key Resources and Reports
Essential publications providing frameworks, data, and policy guidance on care economy challenges in South Asia, from global standards to region-specific insights.
These foundational resources provide essential frameworks, data, and policy guidance for understanding and addressing care economy challenges in South Asia. The ILO's "Care Work and Care Jobs" report establishes global standards, while regional studies like "Catalysing Investments into the Care Economy" offer South Asia-specific insights and recommendations. India's landmark 2019 Time-Use Survey provides the most comprehensive data available for the region's largest country.
Policy Checklist for Governments and Partners
A comprehensive framework addressing care economy challenges through measurement systems, protective legislation, infrastructure development, and cultural transformation initiatives.
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Data and Measurement
Institutionalize regular time-use surveys using internationally comparable methodologies. Develop satellite accounts for unpaid household production to complement GDP measurements. Ensure gender-disaggregated data collection across all relevant statistical systems.
2
Legal and Regulatory Framework
Enact comprehensive legislation protecting domestic workers and other care providers. Implement universal social protection systems that recognize caregiving contributions. Enforce workplace support requirements for working parents and caregivers.
3
Public Infrastructure Investment
Prioritize water, sanitation, energy, and transportation infrastructure that reduces unpaid care workloads. Develop affordable, accessible public childcare and elder care services. Support community-based care models through public-private partnerships.
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Awareness and Norm Change
Launch public education campaigns promoting equitable sharing of care responsibilities. Support school-based programs challenging gender stereotypes around care. Recognize and celebrate male participation in caregiving roles.
Questions for Discussion
This discussion explores key challenges in the care economy through four lenses: measurement methodologies, sustainable financing, institutional coordination, and cultural norm transformation.
Measurement Challenges
How can we better capture the multidimensional nature of care work, including emotional labor and supervisory care, in time-use surveys? What methodological innovations would make these measurements more accurate and policy-relevant?
Financing Solutions
What innovative financing mechanisms could sustainably fund public care infrastructure in resource-constrained settings? How might gender-responsive budgeting tools be adapted to specifically address care economy needs?
Institutional Design
What institutional arrangements would best coordinate the cross-sectoral nature of care economy policies? How can we ensure care considerations are mainstreamed across health, education, labor, and social protection ministries?
Cultural Transformation
What strategies have proven most effective in shifting deeply entrenched social norms around gender and care in South Asian contexts? How can religious and community leaders be engaged as allies in this transformation?
Next Steps and Engagement
A four-pronged approach to advance the care economy in South Asia through policy experimentation, targeted research, stakeholder coordination, and strategic advocacy efforts.
Policy Pilots and Experimentation
Develop context-specific policy experiments to test care economy interventions at municipal or state levels before broader implementation. Priority areas include community childcare models, care cooperatives, time-saving technology subsidies, and domestic worker formalization programs.
Research Agenda
Address critical knowledge gaps through targeted research on caregiving arrangements across diverse South Asian contexts. Particular needs include elder care patterns in aging societies, care dynamics in migration-affected households, and technology adoption impacts on time use.
Coalition Building
Strengthen coordination among stakeholders working on different aspects of the care economy. Establish national and regional care economy networks that connect domestic worker organizations, early childhood advocates, aging specialists, and gender equality champions under a unified framework.
Advocacy Channels
Engage with key policy processes, including five-year development plans, COVID-19 recovery strategies, national employment policies, and social protection reforms. Identify strategic entry points for care economy considerations in upcoming policy reviews and formulations.
This presentation concludes with contact information, additional resources, upcoming regional policy dialogue opportunities, and heartfelt appreciation for care workers' essential contributions.
Thank You
Contact Information
For further information or collaboration opportunities on care economy research and advocacy, please reach out to the presenter or visit the Institute for Care Economy Studies website.
Additional Resources
A comprehensive resource pack with full citations, country-specific data, and detailed policy recommendations is available for download from our digital repository.
Upcoming Events
Join us for the Regional Care Economy Policy Dialogue next month, bringing together government representatives, researchers, and advocates from across South Asia.
Appreciation
Our sincere thanks to all the care workers whose essential contributions sustain our communities and economies, often without recognition or reward. Let's build an economy that truly cares—for everyone.