Women’s Labour & Issues of Recognition

Syllabus: GS2/Social Justice; Vulnerable Section of Society

Context

• Women’s labour remains vastly undercounted and undervalued, especially in unpaid care and domestic work.

Unpaid Care and Domestic Work: Invisible Backbone of the Economy

• Women disproportionately shoulder unpaid care and domestic work, which form the backbone of India’s social and economic life, enabling the economy to function, but it remains neither monetized nor formally recognized.
• According to a United Nations report (2023), women spend 2.8 times more hours than men on unpaid care and domestic tasks globally.
  • It includes cooking, cleaning, caregiving, and other household responsibilities that are essential for the functioning of society but are rarely acknowledged in economic statistics or policy frameworks.
• The ILO estimated that redistributing unpaid care work could raise female labor participation in India to 40% by 2030, contributing an additional USD 250 billion to GDP.

Indian Aspects of Unpaid Care and Domestic Work

• According to the MoSPI’s Time Use in India Report 2024, women spend an average of 314 minutes (5.2 hours) daily on unpaid domestic and caregiving activities;
  • Men spend only 97 minutes, showing negligible improvement from the 2019 survey;
  • Nearly 82% of women aged 15–59 reported engaging in unpaid household work daily compared to 27% of men’
• The NITI Aayog 2025 Gender Index Report reaffirmed the above gap, noting that unpaid work accounts for 63% of women’s total working time, effectively limiting participation in paid employment and entrepreneurship.
• According to a 2023 State Bank of India report, unpaid work in India contributes approximately ₹22.7 lakh crore or about 7.5% of the country’s GDP.
  • Women spend about 36 hours per week on such tasks compared to just 16 hours for men.
• Research indicates that enhancing women’s participation in the labour force could boost India’s GDP by as much as 27%.

Concerns & Issues Surrounding Unpaid Care and Domestic Work

• Persistent Invisibility of Women’s Work: Emotional and mental labour, vital for sustaining relationships and social harmony remains overlooked.
  • It underpins households and economies, but is absent from economic indicators and policy, reinforcing its invisibility despite its role in maintaining both production and social cohesion.
• Structural and Ideological Roots of Devaluation: The marginalisation of care work stems from entrenched economic ideologies.
  • The privileging of male breadwinner employment and the narrow focus on GDP growth as a measure of progress exclude care work from the sphere of ‘productive’ activity.
  • Investment in physical infrastructure like roads, industries, technology continues to eclipse investment in social infrastructure, such as childcare, elder care, and mental health services.
• Gendered Division of Production and Reproduction: The biological aspects of reproduction have historically been used to conceal the social and economic dynamics of gendered labour division.
  • The separation of production (male-dominated) and social reproduction (female-dominated) entrenched women’s subordination and rendered their contributions invisible.
  • This systematic exclusion of women’s direct and indirect labour from formal recognition reflects a continuation of patriarchal economic thinking, where unpaid and emotional work is not seen as productive.

Global Legislative Efforts

• Some countries have begun to institutionalise the recognition of unpaid labour:
  • Bolivia’s Constitution (Article 338) recognises domestic work as an economic activity that creates social welfare, entitling housewives to social security.
  • Trinidad and Tobago’s Counting Unremunerated Work Act (1996) mandates the valuation and gender-based analysis of unpaid care work.
  • Argentina grants pension credits to women for unpaid care work, recognising their role in raising children.
• However, no existing framework fully acknowledges emotional and mental labour, which remains outside the purview of policy and compensation.

Policy and Institutional Developments in India

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development (2025), under the revised National Policy for Women, proposed measures such as:
  • Developing a National Framework for Valuing Unpaid Care Work.
  • Expansion of Anganwadi and crèche services under the Mission Shakti initiative.
  • Incentivizing shared domestic responsibilities through awareness campaigns targeting men and youth.
• NITI Aayog’s Gender Budgeting Report 2025 called for integrating time-use data into fiscal planning, marking the first time unpaid work was explicitly mentioned as an indicator of women’s economic status in India’s national gender framework.
• The Madras High Court, in 2023, acknowledged a wife’s household duties as a contribution to the family’s economic assets, granting her an equal share in property.

Way Forward: Pathways for Change

• Inclusion in GDP Accounting: Integrate unpaid labor metrics into national income accounts through MoSPI.
• Gender-Sensitive Labor Policies: Paid family leave, flexible hours, and caregiver tax credits.
• Infrastructure Investments: Public childcare, eldercare centers, and rural support networks.
• Behavioral Shifts: Nationwide campaigns like ‘Share the Load 2.0’ supported by the government and private sector.

Source: TH