Unveiling the Invisible Economies of Care: Understanding Its Role in Labour and Migration
06-06-2025
The invisible economies of care refer to the unpaid care work, mostly performed by women, that is essential for social reproduction and functioning of households, but remains a castaway in traditional economic systems. The economies of care, separated across space and time, are considered an essential yet overlooked dimension of contemporary labour systems, while sustaining social reproduction and rural livelihoods in India. As per the ILO report (2018) on Care Work and the future of decent work, an increased investment outlay in the care service sector has the potential to generate 475 million jobs globally by 2030. In the Indian context, an investment equivalent to 2% of the GDP can generate about 1.1 crore jobs, with about 70% going to women. This article argues that India's rural livelihood strategies must move beyond wage-centric models and instead embed care work into the policy imagination, particularly in women's labour, intra-household dynamics, and migration.
Understanding Care Work in Rural Contexts
According to NSSO’s Time Use survey, 2019, women spend on average three times more domestic work as compared to men. This strong dichotomy in gendered care responsibilities shapes the out-migration patterns. Men migrate to cities, leaving women to shoulder both productive and reproductive duties like managing the house, community ties and farms if required. This underlines the spatial dimensions of exploitation that reveal themselves across separate locations, with the care economy sustaining all the work done by men in both agricultural and migrant labour sectors (Lerche,2020). It often involves navigating unique challenges related to geographic isolation, limited resources, and strong social connections to a location. In the case of Adivasi women in Jharkhand, where the men migrate to cities in search of work, women take care of the elderly with minimal systemic support, often carrying the elderly to the nearest medical facility on foot. These examples show how rural care work is both emotionally intense and lacks institutional support. Understanding the complexities of care work in these settings requires acknowledging the emotional labour involved, the impact of familiarised care policies, and the interplay between caregiving and the broader rural economy.
Social Reproduction and Rural Economies
A vast majority of Indians in rural areas are employed in the unregulated informal sector, where work is marked by significant unpredictability. Most men are either engaged in farming or migrate to cities in search of employment. In such a context, the work of sustaining life, such as cooking, caregiving, fetching water, tending livestock, is foundational to daily survival, remains unpaid and invisible. This labour of social reproduction , largely carried out by women, is not just a background activity; it actively shapes how rural livelihoods function, adapt, and endure in the face of crisis and change (Rao et al, 2021). Women often carry out dual duties in the field and within their homes; the unpaid care work burden is further exacerbated here due to structural deficits in rural India, such as lack of infrastructure, accessibility, social mindsets, etc. Investments in community-based care models like SEWA’s Sangini cooperative show how rural childcare can empower working women while creating employment for local care workers. Such an initiative offers affordable childcare to low-income rural families but also creates dignified, paid employment for local women, recognizing care work as skilled and essential.
Rethinking Rural Labour: Beyond the Field
Care work exists across a spectrum - paid or unpaid, formal or informal, and delivered through families, communities, markets, or the state (Esquivel, 2013). The conventional economic framework reduces rural labour to agriculture wage employment and self-employment in farming. It overlooks the large amount of unpaid care work done that is quintessential in sustaining the social structures in those areas. The narrow definition of “work” in neoclassical economics discourses filters down to data collection practices, with NSSO surveys systematically undercounting women’s labour force participation by framing work primarily in terms of profit or pay. Very few policies exist that provide caregivers with benefits like maternity leave, health insurance, or social security in rural settings. This lack of institutional support perpetuates women’s economic vulnerability and time poverty, limiting their access to formal employment. Recognising these blind spots is crucial. For example, actor-politician Kamal Haasan’s party, Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), has highlighted the need to compensate women for their unpaid domestic and care work, sparking important debates on state responsibility in valuing such labour. Bridging this gap calls for rural labour policies that integrate care work and promote gender-sensitive program design to redistribute responsibilities more equitably.
Conclusion
The rural communities have shown significant resilience in the face of structural neglect, agrarian distress, and overflowing out-migration. The resilience, however, is not by chance; it is built on the invisible economies of care. The unpaid labour rendered by women fills the gaps left by societal neglect, sustains the social ties and holds together households. Even in the face of social neglect and exploitation, the silent resistance of the rural psyche continues to sustain the care economies, challenging the predominant notions of conventional economic frameworks.
To truly build an inclusive framework of development, care work must be recognized, valued, and integrated into economic thinking. An economy that relegates the invisible economies of care to the margins is, in effect, attempting to build upon a foundation it refuses to acknowledge.
What is not counted, does not count – but it sustains the world.
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