The Invisible 2.6 billion hours powering India every day!
- Leena Chakrabarti
- Aug 12
- 5 min read
This article is the first in the 3-Part series on The Invisible Infrastructure Underwriting India’s Economic Development
The trilogy also anchors the 6-part inaugural edition of theZURI Lever - Caring Futures and together, these articles lay out why care must be recognised as a core infrastructure, vital to India’s growth, employment and demographic resilience.
Part 1 (this) makes the Economic Case for Care
Part 3 maps Emerging Global Shifts - Care as Growth Strategy
Each part builds on the argument that recognising and financing care is no longer optional, it is an economic imperative
Invisible Infrastructure Powering a $4 Trillion Economy
India’s $4 trillion economy is propped up by nearly a trillion hours of labour, invisible care work that go unrecognised, unpaid, and overwhelmingly performed by women. In 2024 alone, this invisible infrastructure—unpaid care work and domestic work, was conservatively valued at over $955 billion, roughly one-third of India’s GDP.
Yet, this massive economic engine is missing from our national accounts, infrastructure plans, budget priorities, and economic policy frameworks.
According to the Government of India’s 2024 Time Use Survey, Indian women contributed an astounding 855 billion hours to unpaid care work, an average of 2.34 billion hours each day, providing essential support such as cooking, cleaning, child and elder care, and managing household well-being. If valued even at the minimum wage, this work would amount to $862 billion, more than 80 times the Union Government’s annual health budget.
Care work forms the daily scaffolding that sustains the formal economy. Without it, workforce participation, productivity, and demographic resilience would collapse. And yet, it remains invisible to economic strategy, from PM Gati Shakti to the National Infrastructure Pipeline. While we continue to invest in roads, digital corridors, and logistics, the care systems that underpin our economic future are treated as private household matters, rather than economic infrastructure.
This invisibility distorts policy. Care is not a private burden, it is a public investment issue with macroeconomic consequences.
Care as economic infrastructure
This article argues that care is not a welfare add on or a gender issue alone, it is foundational economic infrastructure that drives growth, employment & human capital. It is the next frontier of productivity and inclusion. Several countries, Canada, Uruguay, South Korea, Japan have begun recognising and budgeting for care alongside physical infrastructure.
India risks falling behind
Care as an Economic Lever
Unpaid care work is a macroeconomic variable hiding in plain sight. Its exclusion from GDP masks a fundamental economic dependency. Investments in manufacturing, roads, and digital infrastructure are hailed as growth multipliers—yet care remains underfunded, informal, and structurally sidelined.
Evidence from across the world now proves that public investment in care:
Frees women’s time, enabling participation in paid work.
Creates jobs, with 2.5x employment multipliers—far higher than construction or defence.
Builds human capital, especially through early childhood and elder care.
Stabilises demographics, ensuring productivity amid ageing populations and youth bulges.
Yet in India, care remains siloed as a welfare concern, dispersed across under-resourced schemes like ICDS and the National Creche Scheme, which for instance currently has been able to activate just about 3000 centres for over 160 million children under six. Eldercare remains largely privatised, informal and unregulated.
Labour Force Participation and Time Poverty
India’s female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) is one of the lowest among G20 countries. Despite a modest rebound to 31.7% in 2023–24, time poverty due to unpaid care remains a primary barrier. The 2024 Time Use Survey confirms the gender gap, women spend 7.15 hours daily on unpaid work, compared to just 90 minutes for men. Women who report two additional hours of daily caregiving have 20 percentage points lower labour force participation and poorer wellbeing outcomes. Increasing evidence reinforces this link. Studies show that access to affordable childcare in LMICs can increase female labour force participation by 6 - 20 percentage points, depending on baseline rates and service quality.
Neglecting care is not neutral. It perpetuates inequality and stifles economic performance.
According to the NSSO (2022), 46% of women not in the labour force cite caregiving responsibilities as the key reason. McKinsey estimates that closing the gender gap, largely shaped by unpaid care, could boost India’s GDP by $700 billion by 2025.
Without public investment in care systems, India is leaving millions of potential workers behind and their productivity untapped.
Care as a Growth Multiplier
Investments in care not only generate direct employment but have wide economic spillovers,
ILO data shows that every job created in care yields up to 2.5 jobs in the broader economy.
South Korea’s post pandemic care investments yielded a 1.6x employment multiplier in a single year.
In Latin America, reallocating just 2% of GDP to care, produced greater GDP and job gains than similar spending on construction or transport.
India, with its labour surplus, demographic dividend, and deep care deficits, stands to gain immensely from this multiplier effect, particularly for rural women, older workers, and service sector growth.
Care is not a welfare cost—it is an engine of job creation and inclusive recovery
Care Builds Human Capital
Quality care in early childhood, for the elderly, and for persons with disabilities, is a critical determinant of human capital. Yet only 49% of India’s Anganwadi centres are fully functional (as of 2023), and access to early care for low-income households remains extremely limited.
Evidence shows early care improves cognitive, emotional, and physical development—impacting educational outcomes, productivity, and future earnings. Countries like Finland and Japan, which treat care as part of human capital strategy, report strong long-term returns on education and health investments.
Care is not residual, it is foundational to economic capability
Care and Demographic Stability
India faces a double demographic challenge, its vast youth population and a rapidly ageing society. By 2040, over 319 million Indians will be above 60 years. Both demographics require robust care systems, from early childhood centres to eldercare services, to avoid overburdening families, especially women.
Without scalable, quality care infrastructure, India’s demographic dividend may turn into a demographic drag, as productive age workers, especially women, are pulled out of the workforce to manage dependents. The fiscal consequence is substantial. Rising healthcare and social protection costs along with a shrinking tax base if fewer women engage in paid work.
Countries like Japan have implemented long term care insurance (LTCI) systems, Indonesia is investing in community based child and eldercare, pointing to policy routes that fuel workforce participation and mitigate demographic risk.
Care is a macroeconomic stabiliser, not just a safety net
The Cost of Inaction When it comes to care work
India is at its demographic peak. But without a national care infrastructure, the country risks,
Continued low female labour participation
Loss of productivity and long-term economic potential
Rising social costs absorbed by households, not the state
Strategic investment in care offers dual dividends, expanding the labour market while building a resilient, inclusive economy. This is not just a gender issue, it is a GDP issue that GDP is not built to factor in.
Up Next: India’s Care Investment Deficit
In Part 2, we will unpack India’s chronic underinvestment in care, highlighting funding gaps, fragmented care governance, and missed policy opportunities. We will also explore how other countries are financing care economies, as a driver of inclusive resilient economic growth.
