Unpaid care work remains invisible in India's national accounts despite its substantial contribution to GDP. What policy measures can bridge this gap?

Q. Unpaid care work remains invisible in India's national accounts despite its substantial contribution to GDP. What policy measures can bridge this gap? (15 marks, 250-350 words)

The System of National Accounts keeps unpaid household and care services outside the production boundary, recognising them only in optional satellite accounts [5]. India's care work is therefore performed, but never counted — a statistical silence that measurement and care-infrastructure reform together can end.

The invisibility and its cost - Definitional exclusion: only market output enters GDP; cooking, cleaning and caregiving are treated as non-production, so no national accounting head captures them [5]. - Scale of the burden: Time Use Survey 2024 shows 41% of women aged 15–59 participated in caregiving against 21.4% of men, spending about 140 minutes daily versus 74 minutes [1]. - Economic consequence: care duties are the principal reason women stay out of the workforce, keeping female LFPR well below male levels [2]; globally the ILO estimates 708 million women are outside the labour market for this reason [3]. - Judicial nudge: the Supreme Court in Shishu Pal v. Surjeet (2026) fixed a notional ₹30,000/month value for a homemaker's labour and created a "loss of domestic care" compensation head [6].

Policy measures to bridge the gap - Institutionalise measurement: make the Time Use Survey a regular quinquennial exercise rather than an occasional one (2019, 2024 rounds) [1]. - Build a household satellite account: value unpaid services at replacement cost alongside GDP, as the SNA update process recommends — visibility without distorting the headline aggregate [5]. - Redistribute the burden: expand Palna anganwadi-cum-crèches, with over 14,500 approved, plus elder-care and water/fuel access that cut drudgery time [4]. - Recognise in law and budget: a distinct care-economy head in the Gender Budget Statement, and social security for homemakers extending the Court's valuation logic [6].

Counting care work is the first step to sharing it. A statistical framework that measures unpaid labour, backed by public care infrastructure, converts judicial recognition into policy — advancing SDG 5.4 and the constitutional promise of substantive equality.

(~325 words)

Sources: 1. Time Use in India 2024, MoSPI/NSO — PIB release — caregiving participation rates and daily minutes spent by women and men 2. Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report — PIB release — female labour force participation and domestic duties as a barrier 3. ILO, "Unpaid care work prevents 708 million women from participating in the labour market" — global estimate of women outside the labour force due to care duties 4. Anganwadi-cum-Crèches approved under Palna Scheme, Ministry of WCD — PIB release — crèche expansion under Mission Shakti (Samarthya) 5. UN ISWGNA, "Unpaid Household Service Work" (SNA update, endorsed guidance note) — exclusion from the production boundary; satellite-account valuation approach 6. Shishu Pal @ Shish Ram & Ors. v. Surjeet & Ors., Supreme Court of India, 11 June 2026 — ₹30,000/month notional value and the "loss of domestic care" compensation head (official text not retrievable on sci.gov.in at time of writing; cite after verification)