India’s Care Sector as an Enabler for Women’s Economic Participation

Care needs of a large proportion of Indian households are managed primarily through women’s unpaid labour, which restricts their labour market participation. During 2023–2024, the majority of Indian women missing from the labour force cited child care responsibilities and homemaking commitments as key reasons for this situation. Limited participation of government and private sectors in care provisioning and social reproduction of workers has led to inadequate access to paid care services, creating further challenges. Applying a framework developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to define care services as an economic sector, this article finds that India’s care sector is at a nascent stage of development, with the care workforce comprising 5.9% of total employment in 2023–2024. Excluding education and health sectors that account for a significant proportion of the care workforce, personal care services for children, the elderly, disabled and specially abled people employ a much smaller proportion of the care workforce. With increasing economic participation of women, expanding the provisioning of personal care services and ensuring affordability becomes crucial to avoid a care crisis in households. Policy interventions for care sector development through government and private sector investment need to focus on ensuring decent work conditions and social protection for care workers. Considering the higher concentration of women in the care sector, it is crucial for such interventions to be gender-sensitive.