[International Women’s Day] The cost of women’s unpaid labour, and why it needs to be repriced

Picture two scenarios.

In the first, a woman in a corporate organisation works nine hours, sometimes more, at the office. She meets targets, manages teams, and answers emails late into the evening. When she returns home, the primary responsibility of running the household, even with a support system in place, rests with her. Childcare, meal planning, coordinating schedules, tending to ageing parents—and the invisible emotional management that binds it all together—fall within her orbit.

In the second scenario, a homemaker does not have a formal workplace to report to. But her workday is no shorter. She wakes up before the rest of the household, structures the day around her family’s needs, manages domestic logistics, caregiving, finances, and social obligations. Her labour is constant, repetitive, and rarely paused. There is no weekend. In her case, there is no salary, no appraisal, and in most cases, no acknowledgement.

These two women occupy different economic categories. But they share one condition: their time is assumed to be expandable. And, this comes at a measurable cost.

The Time Use Survey, conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and cited in this year's Economic Survey, highlighted that 41% of women aged 15–59 participate in caregiving activities, compared to just 21.4% of men in the same age group. The time differential is equally telling: women spend nearly 140 minutes a day on caregiving, almost double the 74 minutes men spend.

The imbalance becomes starker when unpaid work is examined more broadly. Among individuals aged six years and older, the average time spent on unpaid activities is 278 minutes per day. For women, however, that figure rises to 363 minutes daily—nearly three times the 123 minutes recorded for men.

Men, by contrast, dominate paid work hours. On average, men spend 414 minutes a day in paid employment, compared to 302 minutes for women.

When paid and unpaid work are combined, women’s total working time exceeds that of men. Even when women enter formal employment, they do not shed domestic responsibilities; they add to them.

This dual load helps explain why the female labour force participation rate (FLFP) hovers at around 41%, well below the global average.

A 2024 International Labour Organisation (ILO) study found that more than 50% of women in India remain outside the labour force due to care responsibilities.

The exclusion is real, and it matters! When women’s work remains unpaid, it affects their lives in many ways. It takes years off their careers, does not build savings, and curtails their financial independence. 

Dual incomes give women better agency in their households. Women with independent incomes invest more in their children’s education and health. A rising female labour participation rate signals economic growth and empowerment. 

Recording the time spent by women in paid and unpaid work is the first step towards change. The expansion of paid maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks under the 2017 amendment to the Maternity Benefit Act, along with mandated creche facilities and the emergence of more flexible, women-responsive workplace policies, has offered important institutional support. But maternity leave alone is not enough. Paternity leave should be mandated across the public and private sectors; otherwise, caregiving will, by default, fall on women.

How do you reprice a woman’s time? Structural investment becomes central. Affordable and accessible childcare facilities, hybrid and flexible work options, and better urban planning for mobility and safety must be prioritised. Equally important is the distribution of care within households, where men’s participation must be encouraged and normalised.

The cost of a woman’s time is real. It is not invisible. It is simply undervalued. It is time for nations to recognise it as economic capital and invest accordingly.