Introduction:

The paper titled “Caste and Care Work: Reviewing Time-use Surveys through an Intersectional Lens”, authored by Dr Srujana Boddu and Dr Diagy Verghese essentially argues that care work is essential yet undervalued. By focusing on Dalit and lower-caste women, this paper shows how dominant measurement tools fail to capture the overlapping and unequal burdens of care borne by marginalised women.

Abstract:

Care work is often categorised as a gendered issue, overlooking the intricate role of caste and its hierarchies. Existing dominant methodologies, such as Time-Use Surveys, fail to capture the caste-based stratification of care work, particularly the unpaid and underpaid labour carried out by lower-caste women. These surveys rely on rigid classifications that obscure the blurred boundaries between labour and care for marginalised women, thereby reinforcing epistemic gaps in policy discourse. This paper advocates for a caste-sensitive approach to time-use research, integrating qualitative methods like participatory time-use studies and caste-disaggregated data. It also stresses the need for an intersectional framework to ensure that the burdens of marginalised women are acknowledged and addressed in academic research and policies.

Explanation in Layperson’s Terms:

The paper argues that a lot of the care work that keeps households and society running such as cooking, cleaning, childcare, elder care, and emotional support, is not just shaped by gender, but very deeply by caste. While surveys and policies usually talk about care work as “women’s work,” they miss the fact that Dalit and lower-caste women often do the most exhausting, undervalued, and invisible forms of care, both inside their own homes and for others. Most often, given that the care work (inside and outside their households) of women from marginalised castes are both paid and unpaid economic activities, these distinctions are blurred. The paper argues that commonly used tools like time-use surveys fail to capture this reality because they use rigid categories that do not reflect how care and labour overlap in the lives of marginalised women. As a result, the unequal and double burden faced by lower-caste women remains hidden in data and policy, reinforcing social and economic inequalities instead of addressing them.

Practical Implementation and Social Implication:

The paper on caste and care work highlights how care both paid and unpaid works are deeply shaped by caste hierarchies, not just gender. By examining time-use methodology, we argue how care labour intersects with social disadvantage, challenging mainstream labour policy which tends to treat care work as universal and secondary. The findings can help practical implications for policy making, as they emphasise not only the need for institutional recognition of care work in national statistics, but also underscore the importance of surveys to consider how these differ for women across different social settings. Without acknowledging the distinction of care for marginalised women, a universal measurement obscures the underlying nuances and cannot aid in informing public policies and support mechanisms for women across the heterogeneous social groups.

Future Research Plan:

Dr Srujana’s work broadly focuses on informal labour and urban informality, with particular attention to the intersections of caste and gender and political economy of regional development. Some of her ongoing research includes conceptualising informality and its drivers in the Global South, examining caste dynamics within urban informal labour markets, and analysing youth employment outcomes across differing policy regimes.
Dr Daigy’s research focuses on gender and its intersections with multiple social categories, domains, and discourses- such as development, media, politics, and caste- within the context of Kerala. Her work explores how gender is articulated in social media discussions around the ideologies and discourses of nationalism, feminism, and political masculinity. Her later research focuses on gender and development, investigating how informal labor and family dynamics shape the everyday lives and well-being of women working from home.

The Link to the Article: 

https://www.epw.in/journal/2026/2/commentary/caste-and-care-work.html