Care Work in India
India's Domestic Workers
How many people work in Indian homes as cooks, cleaners and nannies, who they are, and why domestic work is among the least protected jobs.
Millions of Indians work in other people’s homes.
Scale
Estimates of India’s domestic workers vary widely, from around 50 lakh in official surveys to several crore by other estimates, since much work is unrecorded.
Who they are
- Mostly women.
- Many are migrants from poorer states or rural areas.
- Often from marginalised communities.
Types of work
- Part-time workers cleaning or cooking in several homes.
- Full-time or live-in workers.
- Nannies and elderly caregivers.
- Drivers and gardeners.
Why it’s unprotected
- Work happens in private homes, hard to inspect.
- Employers are individual households, not firms.
- Informal arrangements without contracts.
- Domestic work is undervalued as “women’s work”.
Economic role
Domestic workers let many middle-class women and men work outside the home, supporting the wider economy.
A domestic worker in Delhi cleans five apartments each morning, earning from each household separately, with no written contract, paid leave or pension.
They number in the millions, though estimates vary widely.
- India has millions of domestic workers.
- Most are women, often migrants.
- Work in private homes is hard to regulate.
- Domestic workers support others' participation in the workforce.
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