India must build a holistic care system

Why in the News

Care for children, older persons and persons with disabilities rarely features in India’s growth strategy, yet its absence keeps many women out of paid work. In the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2025, 44.4% of women outside the labour force cited childcare and homemaking as the main reason.

What is a care system, and why should it count as infrastructure?

1. What it is: A care system is the set of services that look after children, older persons and persons with disabilities. Like highways, it is infrastructure the economy runs on.
2. Cost of missing care: When care services are missing, families, and women most of all, pay through unpaid work, lost earnings and narrower opportunities.
3. Unpaid care today: Two in five women of working age provide unpaid care, averaging 140 minutes a day (Time Use Survey 2024).
4. Existing pieces: Separate schemes cover parts of care:
   • the Anganwadi network, strengthened through Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0, anchors early childhood care and nutrition;
   • Palna, under Mission Shakti, supports crèches;
   • Mission Vatsalya, social security and provisions for persons with disabilities and senior citizens address other needs.
5. The takeaway: India runs many care schemes but no single system joining them up, so women still fill the gaps.

What are the four gaps in India’s care system?

1. Fragmentation: Care is split across ministries, from women and child development to housing and urban affairs, with no common framework. Eg. Crèches close before factory shifts end.
2. Coverage: Need outstrips supply, and an ageing population will widen the gap:
   • the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that 9-10 million women in low-income urban households need childcare;
   • 24% of older persons face limits in daily activities, and national data on care services remain thin.
3. Workforce: Anganwadi workers, home-based caregivers and domestic workers are often underpaid or honorary, paid a token sum, not a wage. NITI Aayog proposals for standards, certification and social protection would make care skilled, paid work.
4. Financing and norms: Care is budgeted as welfare rather than investment, and workplace policies assume caregiving is women’s work. The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) backs statutory paid paternity leave in private firms.

What do other countries show about joining up care?

1. Colombia: Its 2025 National Care Policy brings 34 government entities under one framework.
2. Brazil: Its 2024 National Care Policy and 2025 National Care Plan set up inter-ministerial committees to steer delivery.
3. Nepal: It used care mapping, a survey of who needs care and what services exist, to fund care pilots.

What would a national care system in India need?

1. National Caregiving Council: NITI Aayog’s report “Reimagining Care: Strategies for Empowering Caregivers in Viksit Bharat@2047” proposes this council to coordinate care across ministries.
2. National Care Economy Mission: A Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment workshop in May 2026 discussed a mission with inter-ministerial governance, aligned financing and shared data.
3. State care roadmaps: States can map care needs against demographic trends and draw up costed plans for childcare, eldercare and disability support.

Challenges

1. Council without a budget: A coordinating council cannot by itself pool money that sits in separate ministry budgets.
2. Cost of fair pay: Moving honorary care workers to decent wages raises governments’ recurring wage bill.
3. Uneven State capacity: States with weak data and planning staff will struggle to produce costed care roadmaps.

Way Forward

1. Pooled care budget: The Union Finance Ministry should give the proposed care mission a single budget head across ministries.
2. Shift-matched crèches: Palna crèches near industrial clusters should stay open for full factory shift hours.
3. Care worker wage floor: The Ministry of Labour and Employment should set a minimum wage and certification for home-based caregivers.

Conclusion

India has built the parts of a care system without the system that would free women’s time for paid work. Whether the proposed council and mission arrive with pooled money and State roadmaps behind them will decide if care becomes infrastructure.

What is the care economy?

1. About: The care economy is the paid and unpaid work of looking after children, older persons, the sick and persons with disabilities, along with the domestic work that supports it.
2. The 5R framework: The International Labour Organization (ILO) approach to care imbalances has five parts:
   • Recognition of unpaid care as work;
   • Reduction of care drudgery through services;
   • Redistribution of care between women and men, and from families to the state;
   • Reward and Representation of care workers through decent pay and a voice in decisions.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2023, GS3, 15 marks] Distinguish between ‘care economy’ and ‘monetized economy’. How can care economy be brought into monetized economy through women empowerment?”