Care economy

Indian Economy glossary

Topic: Sectors of the Indian Economy · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The care economy is all the work, paid and unpaid, of looking after children, the elderly, the sick and persons with disabilities. It also includes domestic work such as cooking, cleaning and fetching water.

It matters because most of this work is unpaid, done mostly by women, and left out of GDP. The time it takes keeps many women out of paid jobs. That lowers household income and national output.

Explanation

Components: paid and unpaid, direct and indirect

  • Unpaid care is done at home for family members, with no wage.

  • Examples: a mother feeding a baby, a daughter nursing an ageing parent.

  • Paid care is done for a wage.

  • Examples: nurses, crèche workers, eldercare workers, paid domestic workers.

  • Direct care is hands-on care of a person, such as bathing, feeding or nursing.

  • Indirect care is the domestic work that makes direct care possible, such as cooking, cleaning and fetching water.
  • The care economy is a lens, not a fourth sector. It groups activities from the three sectors (primary, secondary and tertiary) around one theme. Most paid care is tertiary (services).

Why it is undervalued

  • Not counted in GDP. GDP (the money value of all final goods and services produced in a year) counts only what is bought and sold. When a woman cooks for her own family, no money changes hands, so the work is left out.

  • The same meal cooked by a paid cook is counted in GDP.

  • Gendered. Women do most of it.

  • ILO (2018): women do about three-quarters (76%) of all unpaid care work in the world.

  • Low pay even when paid. Society sees care work as "natural" women's work, so paid care jobs also tend to be low-wage and informal.

Worked example: the time gap (TUS 2024)

  • Women spend about 140 minutes a day on unpaid caregiving. Men spend about 74 minutes [1].
  • Extra time for women: 140 − 74 = 66 minutes a day.
  • Over a year: 66 × 365 ≈ 24,090 minutes ≈ 400 extra hours.

  • In ratio terms, women spend about 1.9 times as much time as men (140 ÷ 74).

  • On unpaid domestic services, women aged 15–59 who took part spent 305 minutes a day in 2024, down from 315 minutes in 2019 [1]. That is a fall of only 10 minutes in five years, and 305 minutes is still more than 5 hours a day.

What makes the care burden rise or fall

  • Rises with:
  • Population ageing. India's elderly share was about 10.5% in 2022 and is projected to reach about 20.8% by 2050 (UNFPA India Ageing Report 2023). More old people means more eldercare.

  • Weak public services, such as few crèches or no piped water at home.

  • Falls (for women) with:

  • Public crèches, eldercare services and health cover.
  • Household infrastructure, such as a tap at home, which cuts time spent fetching water.
  • Men sharing more of the housework.

In India

  • Who measures it: MoSPI (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) runs the Time Use Survey (TUS). The survey records how people spend each minute of the day, including unpaid work. The latest round, TUS 2024, was conducted January–December 2024 [1][2].
  • Key TUS 2024 figures (ages 15–59):
  • Participation in unpaid caregiving for household members: 41% of women against 21.4% of men [1].
  • Time on unpaid caregiving: about 140 minutes a day (women) against 74 minutes (men) [1].

  • Unpaid domestic services (women): 305 minutes a day in 2024, down from 315 minutes in 2019 [1].

  • Overlap with the silver economy: as India ages, eldercare demand grows. AB PM-JAY health cover has been extended to everyone aged 70+, whatever their income, since 2024. This eases some of the family's care and cost burden.

  • The policy chain:
  • Public crèches → mothers get time back → more women take paid jobs → household income and GDP rise.
  • Crèches and eldercare also create jobs directly, for nurses, crèche workers and eldercare workers.
  • As more women join, the female labour-force participation rate (the share of women who are working or looking for work) goes up.

Don't confuse with

  • Purple economy: the care economy is the work itself. The purple economy is a policy model built around that work, in which care is recognised (counted and valued) and publicly supported (public childcare, paid leave, care infrastructure) to achieve gender equality. Trap: in French usage, économie mauve means the cultural economy.
  • Silver economy: the silver economy covers products and services for people aged 60+ (geriatric health, insurance, reverse mortgages, assistive technology). The care economy covers care for all dependants, including children, the sick and persons with disabilities. They overlap only in eldercare.
  • Orange economy: it is the creative economy, whose value comes from intellectual property (film, music, design). It has nothing to do with care work, even though French "mauve" economy sounds close to it.
  • Disguised unemployment: here, more people work than are needed, so output does not fall if some leave (common on farms). Unpaid care work is the opposite case: it is real, needed output that is simply not counted in GDP.

Prelims Hooks

  • Care economy = paid + unpaid care work for children, the elderly, the sick and persons with disabilities, including domestic work (cooking, cleaning, fetching water).
  • Unpaid care work inside the home is excluded from GDP, because no money changes hands. The same work done for a wage is included.
  • ILO (2018): women do about 76% (three-quarters) of all unpaid care work in the world.
  • The Time Use Survey is conducted by MoSPI. TUS 2024 covered January–December 2024 [1][2].
  • TUS 2024 (ages 15–59): unpaid caregiving participation was 41% women vs 21.4% men, and time spent was ~140 vs ~74 minutes a day [1].
  • Trap: "purple economy" means care plus gender equality in the usual policy sense, but the cultural economy in French usage.

Mains Points

  • Care as infrastructure (GS-II, GS-III):
  • Women's heavy unpaid care load (140 vs 74 minutes a day, TUS 2024) [1] keeps the female labour-force participation rate low.
  • Public spending on crèches, eldercare and trained care workers is both social infrastructure (it helps families) and economic infrastructure (it releases women's labour and creates jobs).

  • A "purple economy" approach would count, value and fund care, not treat it as free.

  • Jobs versus value (GS-III, employment):

  • Care work is labour-intensive. It can absorb many low- and mid-skill workers, unlike high-tech sectors such as space and bio, which create fewer jobs for each rupee invested.

  • This helps close India's gap where output has moved to services but jobs are still stuck in agriculture.

  • Ageing and the care squeeze:

  • The elderly share is rising from 10.5% (2022) to 20.8% (2050), and India is getting "old before rich".
  • Without public eldercare, this load falls on women at home. That pushes female employment down further and puts pressure on public health budgets later.

Related concepts

Read more

Sources

  1. 1Report: Time Use in India, 2024 (January–December 2024)pib.gov.in · tier 1
  2. 2Time Use in India 2024 (MoSPI report)mospi.gov.in · tier 1