Purple economy
Topic: Sectors of the Indian Economy · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The purple economy is an economy organised around care work and gender equality. Care work means looking after children, the elderly, the sick and persons with disabilities. In a purple economy this work is recognised and publicly supported instead of being left as unpaid work done mostly by women. The idea matters because unpaid care keeps many women out of paid jobs. When the state invests in care, it creates jobs and raises female labour-force participation, meaning the share of women who work or seek work. The term has a second meaning: in French usage, "purple economy" also refers to the cultural economy.
Example
Globally, women do about three-quarters of unpaid care work (ILO, 2018). A purple-economy step would be public crèches and eldercare centres. They would free mothers and daughters to take paid work and would also create paid jobs for trained carers.
Don't confuse with
- Care economy: the care work itself, paid and unpaid. The purple economy is the wider goal of organising the whole economy so that care is valued and shared.