Understanding the Concept of Work for Women in the Economy

When we ask “who works?”, the answer seems obvious – those who earn a salary, run a business, or hold a job. But this everyday definition hides a much larger truth, especially when it comes to women. A woman who cooks for ten family members, tends to cattle, fetches water, helps in the family farm, and stitches clothes for neighbours is undeniably working – yet for decades, statistics and policy treated her as “economically inactive.” Understanding the concept of work, particularly through a gender lens, is the first step to seeing the economy as it really is.

What does “work” actually mean in economics? 🔗

In mainstream economics, work is narrowly tied to the idea of productive activity – labour that produces goods or services exchanged in the market for a price, or measured within a country’s national income. According to research summarised by Data For India, work covers activities that produce an output either consumed by the household or sold in the market, and international labour statistics consider activities producing goods for self-use and sale as work.

This sounds inclusive, but in practice it isn’t. Household chores, child-rearing, eldercare, and unpaid community work fall outside this boundary because they don’t have a market price. The result is a peculiar paradox: a paid cook in a restaurant is a “worker,” but a woman cooking the same meals at home for her family is not. The activity is identical; only the social and economic recognition differs.

The invisible economy of care 🔗

This invisible work has a name – social reproduction. It includes everything that keeps people fed, healthy, educated, and emotionally ready to step into the paid economy each morning. The IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute notes that economic growth relies on unpaid care work, yet policy frameworks rarely account for or support it. The Time Use Survey of 2019 found that women spend nearly five hours a day on unpaid domestic work, while men spend less than two.

Treating this labour as “not work” has consequences. It undervalues women’s contribution to GDP, distorts policy priorities, and reinforces the idea that women who stay home are economically dependent rather than economically essential.

Defining work from a gender perspective 🔗

A gender-sensitive definition of work begins by asking a simple question: does the activity produce value for someone? If yes, it counts – whether or not money changes hands.

Feminist economists have pushed for three broad categories to be recognised as work:

Paid work 🔗

This is the conventional category – wages, salaries, profits from a business, or earnings from self-employment. Yet even here, women face hurdles. They are clustered in low-paid sectors, informal jobs, and part-time arrangements. The e-PG Pathshala module on Women and Work highlights that within the informal sector, women earn on average a lower wage than men, with the gender wage gap being greater than in the formal sector.

Unpaid productive work 🔗

This includes helping in a family farm, family business, or home-based enterprise without receiving wages. A daughter who helps her father stitch garments for a tailoring shop is producing marketable goods, but her labour is often hidden inside the “family unit.” Such work is now recognised in many national surveys but was historically erased.

Unpaid care and domestic work 🔗

Cooking, cleaning, fetching firewood and water, raising children, and caring for the elderly or sick – these activities sustain households and free up other family members to engage in paid work. Yet they remain outside the System of National Accounts in most countries.

Global insights on gender inequality in work 🔗

The exclusion of women’s labour from mainstream definitions of work has produced a striking global picture. The International Labour Organization reports that among people aged 25 to 54, the gender gap in labour force participation stood at 29.2 percentage points in 2022, with female participation at 61.4 per cent and male participation at 90.6 per cent. For those with at least one child under six, the gap widens to 42.6 percentage points – what researchers call the “motherhood penalty” and the “paternity premium.”

In 2024, only about 46 per cent of women aged 15 and above were in employment globally, compared to 70 per cent of men – a gap of more than 20 percentage points.

Why does this gap matter? 🔗

The implications go far beyond fairness. When half the population is underrepresented in paid work, economies forgo enormous output and innovation. The Asian Development Bank observes that social norms and cultural practices define traditional views of what constitutes “men’s work” and “women’s work,” with women slotted into caregiving roles or low-paying clerical positions, and girls often pushed into professions like teaching, beauty work, or nursing – limiting their entry into higher-paying skilled professions dominated by men.

This isn’t only a statistical concern. It shapes inheritance patterns, marriage decisions, mobility, mental health, and political voice. A woman whose labour isn’t counted often has less say in household and public decisions.

The Indian story: how the census redefined “work” 🔗

India offers a fascinating case study of how definitions of work have evolved – and how those changes have made women more (or less) visible.

From 1961 to 1971: the great narrowing 🔗

In the 1961 Census, a person was classified as a worker if they had worked regularly during the last season or worked at least for a day in regular non-seasonal work during the preceding fortnight. This broad definition captured a great deal of women’s seasonal and irregular labour. But by 1971, the reference period was narrowed – only those whose main activity was work counted, with a one-week reference period. The change had a dramatic effect: women’s recorded work participation appeared to drop sharply, not because women had stopped working, but because the definition no longer captured what they did.

1981 onwards: main and marginal workers 🔗

Recognising the problem, the 1981 Census introduced a two-category system. According to Arthapedia, the Census of India defines all persons engaged in “work” – participation in any economically productive activity, with or without compensation, wages, or profit – as workers, classified into Main Workers (those working 183 days or more in the year) and Marginal Workers (those working less than 183 days).

This change was vital for women’s visibility. Many women work in agriculture seasonally or take up piece-rate home-based work for a few months a year. They are now counted, even if their work doesn’t add up to a full year.

Census 2011: deeper sub-classification 🔗

The 2011 Census went further. The Press Information Bureau notes that marginal workers were classified into two sub-categories – those who worked between three and six months and those who worked for less than three months – allowing for finer analysis of underemployment, which disproportionately affects women.

The role of NSSO and Time Use Surveys 🔗

Beyond the census, the National Sample Survey and the Periodic Labour Force Survey have refined how work is measured. The introduction of the Time Use Survey in 2019 was a landmark – for the first time, the country systematically measured how much time men and women spend on unpaid domestic and care work. This data revealed the scale of women’s hidden contributions and is now used by ministries to design childcare and welfare policy.

Why women’s work remains underestimated 🔗

Even with improved definitions, several barriers continue to make women’s work invisible:

The “housewife” default 🔗

Census enumerators and family members often report a woman’s primary activity as “household work” when she also engages in farming, livestock care, or home-based production. This default categorisation strips away her economic identity.

Informality 🔗

The vast majority of working women in India are in the informal sector – domestic workers, agricultural labourers, home-based artisans, street vendors. The Council on Foreign Relations highlights that India has used innovative tools like self-help groups (SHGs) – groups of women lending to one another – to bring informal workers into recognised economic networks. Programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act mandate equal wages for men and women and include childcare provisions at worksites.

Statistical undercounting 🔗

The UN Women report on the Indian labour market finds that women’s labour force participation is not only less than half that of men but also declined in 2011-2012, influenced by age, marital status, presence of children, socio-religious status, area of residence, education, and household affluence.

Towards a more honest definition of work 🔗

Redefining work isn’t just an academic exercise. It changes how budgets are allocated, how pensions are designed, how maternity benefits are structured, and how women’s contributions are honoured. Countries that have begun to value unpaid care work – through satellite accounts, time-use data, and care infrastructure – have seen better outcomes for women and the broader economy.

The next leap will be recognising care as economic infrastructure, much like roads or electricity. Without it, no factory runs and no office opens. With it, women’s labour finally appears in the ledgers of the nation.

What do you think? If a woman’s daily work of cooking, caregiving, and household management were valued at market rates, how do you think it would reshape your family’s understanding of “who earns” in the household? And do you think India’s official statistics still undercount the work that women actually do every day?

References

1. https://www.dataforindia.com/women-and-work/
2. https://www.impriindia.com/insights/feminisation-of-labour-in-india-gender/
3. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/socp10/chapter/women-and-work/
4. https://www.ilo.org/media/365356/download
5. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Countries-Regions/International-Statistics/Data-Topic/Population-Labour-Social-Issues/Labour-market/employment.html
6. https://blogs.adb.org/blog/get-women-working-india-s-economic-development
7. http://vanneman.umd.edu/districts/codebook/deflf.html
8. http://www.arthapedia.in/index.php/Worker_(Census_Definition)
9. https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=71103
10. https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-global-economy/case-studies/india/
11. https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2016/2/the-indian-labour-market-a-gender-perspective