India’s care economy could create 60 million jobs by 2030

NATIONAL: India is sitting on one of its largest untapped growth engines: care work. Long treated as a private household responsibility, the care economy already employs an estimated 36 million people, yet remains undervalued, informal and largely invisible in economic planning.

A new report argues that care must be reimagined as a core economic sector, capable of anchoring India’s next phase of growth. With targeted investment in skilling, certification, formalisation and demand creation, the sector could generate over 60 million jobs by 2030 and create market value of $300 billion.

The study redefines the care economy for India by mapping 13 distinct care personas, spanning childcare, eldercare, disability support, rehabilitation, mental health, wellness, beauty, domestic services and care enterprise management. This broader definition captures the fragmented but vast reality of paid care in India, much of which remains statistically invisible and politically neglected.

Contrary to entrenched assumptions, the report finds that care jobs are not inherently low-value or precarious. Where roles are formalised and linked to organised service delivery, care work can offer stable, predictable and often comparatively well-paid employment, particularly for women and young workers. The constraint, it argues, is not demand but design.

Care demand is geographically dispersed, cutting across metros, tier-2 and tier-3 cities, peri-urban regions and rural India. This makes it one of the few sectors where growth is naturally decentralised, capable of creating quality jobs where people already live and reducing distress migration.

Despite rising demand driven by ageing, chronic disease and changing family structures, the sector continues to grow by default rather than by design. Workers bear the risks of informality and income volatility, enterprises struggle to scale without regulatory clarity, and households face uneven quality and high costs.

The report calls for explicit fiscal and institutional intent in the Union Budget, including dedicated allocations for care services, skilling and worker protection. It proposes a National Care Services Mission, aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat, to treat care as productive economic infrastructure rather than welfare expenditure.

A proposed Nurture framework outlines how mission-led governance, skill pathways, regulation, technology, social protection and enterprise growth could convert an invisible workforce into a structured industry. The report concludes that the question for policymakers is no longer whether care should be prioritised, but whether India is ready to build it deliberately.