{"id":14891,"date":"2025-10-19T06:27:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T06:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/?p=14891"},"modified":"2025-10-22T06:58:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T06:58:41","slug":"unpaid-care-of-women-and-limiting-indias-7-trillion-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/unpaid-care-of-women-and-limiting-indias-7-trillion-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeing Women from Unpaid Care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When economists and policymakers speak of India’s ambition to become a $7 trillion economy, they often talk about infrastructure, foreign investment, digital innovation and green energy. But one of the most overlooked levers of this transformation lies inside Indian homes: the unpaid care work performed overwhelmingly by women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unpaid care\u2014including child-rearing, elder care, cooking, cleaning and fetching water\u2014makes up a significant portion of India’s real economic activity. But because it doesn\u2019t pass through a market transaction, it remains unmeasured in GDP. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data shows that women in India spend up to six hours a day on unpaid domestic and caregiving responsibilities, compared to men\u2019s average of less than one hour. This disparity has deep implications for labour force participation, productivity and gender equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, India’s female labour force participation rate is among the lowest in the world. Much of this is linked not to a lack of willingness or skill, but to the sheer load of unpaid domestic labour. This is the silent tax women pay, restricting their opportunities for paid employment, education<\/a> or entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Economic Case for Change<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If this unpaid work were monetised, it could account for nearly 13% of India\u2019s GDP, according to estimates from the International Labour Organization. But the case isn\u2019t just moral or statistical; it\u2019s economic. Reducing women’s unpaid work and enabling their entry into the formal workforce could significantly increase India\u2019s productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2023 report by McKinsey estimated that advancing gender parity in India could add $770 billion to GDP<\/a> by 2025 (but isn’t 2025 getting over already!). Unlocking this requires coordinated efforts in childcare infrastructure, flexible work policies, social norms change and capacity building \u2014 all areas where civil society has an outsized role to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Smile Foundation and Women Empowerment<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Smile Foundation\u2019s livelihood<\/a> and women empowerment<\/a> programmes offer a compelling example of how this transformation can be grounded in practical, scalable models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through its women-centric STeP (Smile Twin e-Learning Programme), the Foundation trains young women in urban slums in market-aligned skills such as digital marketing, patient care and retail services. The programme includes flexible learning schedules, family counselling and confidence-building workshops, all designed to help women overcome both time poverty and social restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One graduate, Priyanka from Delhi, once spent her entire day caring for siblings and managing the household. After enrolling in STeP, she received digital and soft-skills training, secured employment in a retail chain and now supports her family financially. Importantly, her working status shifted the dynamics at home: responsibilities are more equitably distributed and her younger siblings have started seeing career possibilities for girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In rural areas, Smile Foundation integrates early childhood care and education (ECCE) centres with mother\u2019s support groups. These centres serve a dual purpose of preparing children for school and freeing up hours of women\u2019s time each day, which can be redirected to income-generating or educational activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Childcare Infrastructure: A National Gap<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

India lacks adequate childcare infrastructure, especially in informal and low-income urban areas. According to a 2022 report by UNICEF, only 23% of working women have access to any form of institutional childcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Smile Foundation\u2019s approach to solving this includes community-run creches, mobile education units and parental sensitisation sessions. These efforts enable women not just to seek employment but also to sustain it over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norms Change: The Slow Revolution<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Even as infrastructure improves, change must also come from within families and communities. Deep-rooted gender norms are not easily dislodged. Smile Foundation works closely with men and boys, organising gender workshops, intergenerational dialogues and father-focused campaigns to foster shared responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key insight from our work is that public messaging alone is insufficient. What works better is proximity: seeing one\u2019s neighbour share domestic work or hearing a daughter\u2019s success story can be more persuasive than a government poster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smile Foundation’s interventions show that multi-sectoral solutions anchored in local contexts can effectively address unpaid care burdens. Policymakers must integrate care economy measures into mainstream economic planning \u2014 from expanding ICDS and Anganwadi services to mandating workplace childcare and funding community creches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upcoming Union Budget could, for instance, introduce care credits or tax rebates for caregiving households, incentivise employers to adopt family-friendly practices and fund public awareness campaigns on unpaid care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Invisible to Invaluable<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For India to meet its growth ambitions, it must start counting what counts. Unpaid care work isn\u2019t a peripheral issue \u2014 it is central to economic resilience, human development and social justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As India aims to become a $7 trillion economy, it must free half its population from the invisible chains of care work \u2014 not by eliminating caregiving, but by redistributing it more fairly and valuing it more visibly. Only then can the country move from promise to possibility, powered equally by the hands of all its people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India’s path to $7 trillion must pass through its homes. Unpaid care work, mostly shouldered by women, remains invisible yet foundational to the economy. Recognizing and reducing this burden is essential to unlocking productivity, equity, and sustainable growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[971],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smilefoundationindia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}