Expanding decent employment opportunities in the care economy in India

The ILO Country Office for India and Decent Work Technical Support Team (DWT) for South Asia is a centre of technical excellence, which supports all countries in South Asia to realize decent work for inclusive growth and sustainable development. The Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) for India (2013-27), formulated and adopted by the constituents at the national level through a process of tripartite consultation, is the framework for ILO's assistance to constituents in the country. 

The DWCP recognizes the importance of enhancing female labour force participation (FLFP) and improving women’s access to decent employment opportunities as a crucial link for realizing gender equality and sustainable development.
Enhancing FLFP and improving women's access to decent employment opportunities have been an important work area for realizing gender equality and sustainable development as stated in India's DWCP.

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified its importance as it brought increased demand for unpaid care work which will likely result in further decline in FLFP. To realize gender equality and decent work for all, India needs to create more decent employment opportunities, improve the working conditions of workers in the care sector who are mostly women, and work towards promoting a better sharing of unpaid care responsibilities.

With this objective, the ILO is implementing a project entitled "Expanding decent employment opportunities in the care economy in India". The project promotes gender equality and non-discrimination and responds to a request from the NITI Aayog to develop a national strategy on the care economy as a follow-up to the recommendations of the ILO-led joint UN paper on reducing barriers for FLFPR submitted to NITI Aayog in early 2020.

The project adopts a two-pronged strategy to promote investments in the care economy for quality job generation for the future of decent work at both the national and state levels. At the national level, the ILO has worked closely with the Skill Development, Labour and Employment (SDE) vertical at NITI Aayog, to carry out various assessments on investment needs and job creation potential in the care economy. The above-mentioned reports comprise:

1. Methodology for estimating coverage gap of care service provisions
2. Gap analysis of current care service coverage
3. Estimation of the workforce in care and non-care and employment quality
4. Estimating economic return to investment in the care economy

The objective of the accompanying policy brief is to highlight thematic interventions such as:

• Increasing investment in the care sector
• Building skilled and certified care workers
• Providing accessible and affordable care services and improving care infrastructure
• Developing and implementing care policies and measures at work
• Promoting decent work conditions for care workers, including migrant care workers

At the state level, ILO will work with the state departments and organizations to dive deep into a sub-sector to identify gaps in areas such as laws and policies, skills development, certification systems and infrastructure, and investment needs to inform decision-makers to take concrete action in promoting quality job generation in the care sector. The experience from the state-level work will also feed into the work at the national level.