In 2008, a survey of women working in Tamil Nadu’s Viluppuram district raised a question— can quality childcare facilities increase and sustain women’s participation in the Indian economy? “If there were someone to take care of my child,” one woman said, “why would I not go to work? Is [the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act] not important for my very survival?”
The Karnataka Government recently drew attention to this link. It announced the opening of childcare centres across 4,000 gram panchayats under the Koosina Mane scheme. The scheme is for women with children between six months and six years, who are employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), as well as for those who live in the area. This “essential public infrastructure” has a bearing not only on women’s economic agency and well-being, but would positively impact children’s health and education, evidence shows.
Daycare facilities across different sectors respond to the complex realities of women’s unpaid work and their diminishing presence in the workforce. Gendered roles assign childcare responsibilities to women, often binding young mothers to the household. It keeps them from meaningfully participating in the economy, or in other cases fully dropping out, congealing into India’s low female labour force participation rates, which dropped from 32% in 2005 to 19% in 2021, per data (Men’s participation, on the other hand, has gradually improved).
