Unpaid, I Lose, Paid, You Win: The Gendered Use of Time and Care in India

Rajarshi Majumder and Debika Som
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Debika Som: University of Burdwan

The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2025, vol. 68, issue 3, No 10, 959-981

Abstract: Abstract Care work is ubiquitous and sustains people from day to day and from one generation to other. Paid care work system has grown mainly in response to shrinking household size and emergence of micro-families. The care economy, or purple economy, encompasses all care work—paid and unpaid, within households and in institutions, direct and indirect. In this paper, we explore three issues in Indian context: (a) What is the gender distribution of care giving? (b) What is the approximately monetary equivalent of such ‘unpaid care work’? (c) What are the conditions of ‘care givers’ in the labour market? Using Time Use and Labour Market survey data, we find that the care work in India is highly gendered and mostly performed by women, even when they are working outside. This starts very early in the family, and teenage girls are pushed into care work at the cost of their education, constraining their skill formation necessary for entering labour market in future. Conservative estimate shows that it contributes more than 7 per cent towards the gross domestic product (GDP). Working conditions of paid care workers are precarious and therefore policies to monetise care work should focus on working conditions of care workers too.

Keywords: Care work; Female labour force participation; Employment; Double burden; Care economy; Purple economy; Gender disparity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J16 J22 J31 J81 R20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s41027-025-00578-w

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