India’s unequal care economy

In the context of massive care deficits and inadequate public provision of basic care services in India, there are significant inequalities not only between unpaid and paid care workers, but also among paid care workers, in both wages and conditions of work. The spectrum ranges from unpaid and largely unrecognized work within families and communities, to very underpaid and informal work performed by frontline ‘scheme workers’ in the public sector and domestic workers in the private sector, to more formal employment in public and private hospitals. This in turn affects the quality of care received.