Why does India need a trained workforce for elderly care?

Why in the News

India’s population aged 60 and above is projected to grow from about 149 million in 2022 to 347 million, roughly 20.8% of the population, by 2050. Most older people are looked after by untrained, unpaid family members. Budget 2026-27 has announced training of 1.5 lakh caregivers, and a NITI Aayog report now treats caregiving as an economic activity.

What is formal caregiving, and why does India need it now?

1. What it is: Formal caregiving is care of the elderly or disabled by certified workers, like a nurse rather than a well meaning relative. It covers spotting age related problems, assessing needs and emergency care.
2. The joint family’s role: India never needed a long term care system because the joint family, with three generations under one roof, shared the work of care.
3. Micro families: In today’s micro family units, untrained housewives usually provide care and learn through mistakes, which adds to household stress.
4. Dependants: About 26.8 million aged and differently abled people depend on these unpaid, informal caregivers.
5. The takeaway: Care that families once absorbed for free now needs a trained, paid workforce.

What has the government announced?

1. Budget 2026-27: The Budget announced caregiver training aligned to the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF), the national system that grades skills by level so a certificate means the same everywhere.
2. NITI Aayog report: The August 2026 report “Reimagining Care: Strategies for Empowering Caregivers in Viksit Bharat@2047” frames caregiving as an economic activity rather than just welfare work, a first at the national policy level.
3. National Caregiver Council (NCC): The report envisages an NCC as the apex national body for caregiving.

Why is the planned workforce too small?

1. Scale of unpaid care: On NITI Aayog’s estimate that 10% of the population does untrained, unpaid caregiving, India has about 146 million such caregivers today.
2. Budget target too small: Against that need, the Budget’s training target falls far short even of today’s demand.
3. Gender gap: A National Statistics Office (NSO) survey finds women spend 299 minutes a day on unpaid domestic and care work, against only 97 minutes for men.
4. K4 Care: Kudumbashree, Kerala’s self help group mission, runs K4 Care to certify geriatric, patient and disability care executives. Only 838 have completed it since its launch in February 2024.
5. ASHA training: The National Health Systems Resource Centre‘s elderly care manual trains Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), village health workers, at Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centres. Completion numbers are not public.

Challenges

1. Cognitive decline: Care is not only physical, since Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease bring emotional and behavioural challenges that basic training does not cover.
2. Small, untested models: K4 Care and the ASHA module, India’s two working training models, are small and untested.
3. Burden on women: Without formal options, care keeps falling on women, which keeps many of them out of paid work.
4. Families cannot pay: Most elderly people lack pensions, so households struggle to afford paid care. Eg. About 30% of the elderly have any pension (Economic Survey, 2022).

Way Forward

1. Certify informal carers: Recognise and upskill the millions of informal family caregivers into certified caregivers, rather than training only newcomers.
2. Trainers from existing cadres: Use formally trained Kudumbashree members and ASHA workers as trainers, so the training chain keeps multiplying.
3. NCC as standard setter: Let the NCC set benchmarks, supervise skilling, standardise curricula and run a national portal listing certified caregivers.
4. Mental health in the curriculum: Build geriatric mental health and behavioural management into the national curriculum alongside physical care protocols.

Conclusion

India has recognised caregiving as an economic activity, but its training plan is sized for a pilot, not for a society ageing this fast. Whether the Budget’s small start grows into a working certification system on the ground is the test to watch.

Back2Basics: Care economy

1. What it is: The care economy covers paid and unpaid work of looking after children, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, along with the domestic work that supports it.
2. Outside GDP: Unpaid care at home is not counted in national income, so official output understates the work done, mostly by women.
3. Care versus monetised economy: The monetised economy covers goods and services exchanged for money. Care enters it when trained, certified workers are paid to provide it.
4. Job potential: Raising investment in the care economy towards 2% of GDP is estimated to create around 11 million jobs, held largely by women.

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?”