Care System and Economy

Context

India has rapidly expanded physical and digital infrastructure, but care services remain less systematically organised. As India pursues Viksit Bharat@2047, childcare, eldercare and disability support are becoming increasingly important for women’s employment, demographic resilience and inclusive growth.

What is the Care Economy?

1. The care economy includes all paid and unpaid activities involved in meeting the physical, emotional and developmental needs of children, older persons, persons with disabilities and other dependants.
2. It covers both unpaid family caregiving and paid services delivered through crèches, care centres, community workers and professional caregivers.
3. Because reliable care enables people—especially women—to participate in education and employment, it functions as an important form of social and economic infrastructure.

Why the Care Economy Matters

1. Women’s employment: In PLFS 2025, 44.4% of women outside the labour force cited childcare or homemaking commitments as their main reason for non-participation, showing how unpaid care can restrict access to paid work.
2. Unequal unpaid work: The Time Use Survey 2024 found that 41% of women aged 15–59 undertook unpaid caregiving for about 140 minutes daily, compared with 21.4% of men and 74 minutes, reducing women’s time for employment, education and skilling.
3. Ageing-related demand: Around 24% of older persons have at least one limitation in Activities of Daily Living, increasing the need for organised long-term and home-based care services.

India’s Existing Care Architecture

1. Early childhood platform: Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0 combine nutrition, early childhood care, health monitoring and preschool support, giving India a large community-based foundation for childcare delivery.
2. Employment-supportive childcare: Palna under Mission Shakti provides crèche and day-care services for young children, helping reduce the care constraint faced by mothers seeking paid employment.
3. Segmented support system: Eldercare, disability support and child-related services operate through different programmes and institutional channels, creating coverage but not yet a fully integrated life-cycle care system.
4. Governance implication: India therefore has multiple care-related schemes, but the next challenge is to connect them through common standards, interoperable data and coordinated service delivery.

Structural Gaps in the Care Economy

1. Coverage deficit: UNDP estimates that 6–7 million women in low-income urban households need affordable childcare to enter or remain in employment, while existing provision meets only a small share of demand.
2. Integrated-service gap: Separate systems for childcare, eldercare and disability support make it difficult to provide continuous, household-level care.
3. Workforce vulnerability: Many frontline and informal care workers face uneven training, remuneration and social protection, affecting both job quality and consistency of care.
4. Gendered responsibility: Treating care mainly as women’s unpaid obligation reinforces labour-market inequality; stronger public services and shared household responsibility can redistribute this burden.

Building a Holistic Care System

1. National framework: NITI Aayog has proposed a National Policy on Caregiving and a National Caregiver Council to coordinate standards, accreditation, training and inter-ministerial action.
2. Professionalising care work: Standardised certification, career pathways and social protection can convert caregiving into skilled and dignified employment while improving service quality.
3. State-level planning: States and cities should map childcare, eldercare and disability-care gaps and align service locations and timings with local demographic and employment patterns.
4. Care as infrastructure: Public investment in affordable care can support human development, women’s labour-force participation and employment creation, making care a productive component of development rather than only welfare expenditure.

FAQs

Q1. What is the care economy?
It includes paid and unpaid activities related to childcare, eldercare, disability support and household care.

Q2. How does unpaid care affect women’s employment?
It reduces the time women can devote to paid work, education and skill development.

Q3. What does the Palna scheme provide?
It provides crèche and day-care services under Mission Shakti.

Q4. What has NITI Aayog proposed for caregiving?
A National Policy on Caregiving and a National Caregiver Council.

Q5. Why should care be treated as infrastructure?
Because reliable care services support human well-being, labour-force participation and inclusive growth.