Mainstreaming the Care Economy: Policy Imperatives for Enhancing Female Labour Force Participation

The recent high-level roundtable hosted by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) marks a significant policy shift toward recognizing the 'care economy' as a critical pillar of India’s developmental trajectory. For decades, the gendered division of labour has relegated domestic and caregiving responsibilities—predominantly shouldered by women—to the informal and invisible sphere. This phenomenon remains a primary structural barrier preventing women from accessing formal employment, thereby limiting their contribution to the national GDP.

The dialogue emphasized a three-pronged approach: recognizing, reducing, and redistributing unpaid care work. Experts noted that current care deficits—lack of affordable childcare, eldercare, and accessible support systems—force women into a 'time poverty' trap. When women spend a disproportionate amount of time on unpaid chores, their capacity to upskill or engage in the labour market is severely curtailed. To remedy this, the policy discourse suggests a transition from viewing care as an individual responsibility to recognizing it as a public good that necessitates state intervention and private sector investment.

Investing in the care economy yields a double dividend: it creates formal sector jobs in the care industry, which is labour-intensive and offers significant scope for employment generation, and it simultaneously releases female human capital back into the workforce. Integrating care infrastructure, such as creches and elderly assistance programmes, into the broader urban planning and welfare frameworks is essential. As India moves toward a more digitized and formalised economy, the lack of a robust care infrastructure threatens to widen the gender gap in the labour market. By prioritizing this sector, the government can foster a more inclusive growth model that aligns with the principles of social justice and economic efficiency.