Indore (Madhya Pradesh): A new study from Indian Institute of Management Indore has revealed that unpaid care and household work performed largely by women in India could be worth anywhere between Rs 30 trillion and Rs 90 trillion annually, amounting to 11–27 per cent of the country’s GDP -- a massive contribution that remains largely invisible in official economic accounts.
The study, titled “The Invisible Economy: India’s Care Work Crisis,” was conducted by Madhav Goel, an IPM student at IIM Indore, along with Prof Shweta Kushal from the institute’s communications area. Using data from India’s Time Use Survey and Periodic Labour Force Survey, the researchers applied two standard valuation methods to estimate the economic value of unpaid care work.
One approach, known as the replacement cost method, calculates how much it would cost to pay workers for domestic and care services. The second, the opportunity cost method, estimates the income women forgo by engaging in unpaid work instead of paid employment. Together, these methods highlight the sheer scale of economic activity that goes unrecognised because it does not involve monetary transactions.
The study found that Indian women spend an average of 299 minutes per day on unpaid household and care work, compared to just 42 minutes for men, reflecting a seven-fold gender gap. Women account for nearly 87% of the total economic value generated by unpaid care work, pointing to what the authors describe as systematic economic extraction.
India’s situation mirrors a global trend but with greater intensity. According to OECD data, women perform around 75% of unpaid care work worldwide, while the International Labour Organisation estimates such work contributes between 10% and 39% of GDP across economies. India’s figures place it at the higher end of this spectrum.
Unlike many European countries that have reduced gender disparities through state-supported childcare, parental leave, and social care infrastructure, India lacks comprehensive policies to redistribute unpaid care responsibilities. This gap has significant consequences for women’s economic participation. Female labour force participation in India stands at around 40%, compared to nearly 75% in developed economies.
The exclusion of unpaid care work from national income accounting has also shaped policy priorities. Policymakers, the study notes, often cite a lack of measurable evidence when delaying investments in childcare, eldercare, and parental support systems. This, in turn, limits women’s lifetime earnings, economic independence and access to diverse occupations.
Countries that have narrowed the unpaid work gap have done so through deliberate policy interventions, including subsidised daycare, flexible work arrangements and paternity leave, which encourage men’s participation in domestic responsibilities. Such measures generate economic returns by expanding the labour supply, improving productivity, and reallocating talent from unpaid to market work.
The authors argue that recognising unpaid care work is not merely a social issue but an economic imperative. “India’s growth potential will remain incomplete unless the economy first acknowledges what it has long overlooked,” the study concludes, warning that the success of the next decade depends on how effectively policymakers address this deeply gendered divide.
