India’s proposed changes to the Periodic Labour Force Survey could bring unpaid caregiving, household activities and other forms of work into more regular employment data. For millions of women, the shift could make visible the labour that sustains households but often goes unrecognised.

A woman who spends her morning preparing meals, washing clothes, caring for children and looking after an elderly parent may have completed hours of work before the day’s paid employment even begins. Yet, in conventional discussions about employment, her contribution can remain largely invisible.

India is now proposing a change that could help bring some of this work into its official labour statistics.

On October 23, 2026, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) announced proposed modifications to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), including new questions on unpaid household activities, caregiving, volunteer work and unpaid trainee work. The changes are scheduled to take effect from January 2027.

The proposed revisions are intended to provide a broader understanding of work beyond conventional employment. They could also improve the availability of data on activities that contribute to household and community well-being but are not necessarily reflected in employment figures.

For women, who shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic and care responsibilities, the development raises a larger question: what changes when the work performed inside homes begins to appear more clearly in the country’s labour statistics?

What is changing in India’s labour survey?

The Periodic Labour Force Survey, conducted by the National Statistics Office under MoSPI since 2017, is one of India’s principal sources of employment and unemployment data.

It provides information on labour force participation, employment and unemployment across rural and urban India. The survey was revamped in January 2025 to provide more frequent estimates, including monthly, quarterly and annual indicators.

The proposed changes for January 2027 would expand the information collected through the survey.

According to the ministry’s announcement, new questions will be added to Schedule 10.4 to measure:

• Production of goods for a household’s own use.
• Unpaid household and caregiving activities.
• Unpaid volunteer work.
• Unpaid trainee work.

The questions will be asked of people aged 15 and above in both rural and urban areas during the first survey visit. This is intended to enable annual reporting on these activities.

The ministry has also proposed changes to improve the identification of digital platform workers, a subset of the wider gig workforce.

The revisions are part of a broader effort to capture emerging forms of work and improve the survey’s ability to reflect the changing labour market.

However, the changes are still proposed. They should not be interpreted as evidence that unpaid household work will automatically be classified as formal employment or that the new data will immediately change existing employment estimates.

The work women do but employment figures may miss

Unpaid domestic and caregiving work includes activities such as cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, caring for children and looking after elderly, sick or disabled family members.

These activities are essential to the functioning of households. They also support the wider economy by enabling other household members to participate in paid employment, education and other activities.

Yet unpaid household work is not the same as employment in the conventional labour-market sense.

A woman may spend several hours each day caring for her family without receiving wages, being employed by an organisation or being counted as an employed person under standard labour statistics.

The distinction matters because employment data are often used to assess women’s economic participation and their access to paid work.

A woman who is not employed may be described as outside the labour force, depending on her activity and availability for work. But that description does not necessarily reveal whether she is spending her day caring for family members, managing a household, looking for work or pursuing education.

The proposed survey questions could help provide a more detailed picture of what people are doing outside conventional employment.

They could also help researchers examine how unpaid responsibilities interact with women’s access to paid work.

What India’s Time Use Survey already tells us

India does not begin this exercise from scratch.

The National Statistics Office conducted the Time Use Survey in 2019 and again in 2024. These surveys provide information on how people allocate their time across paid work, unpaid domestic activities, caregiving, learning, leisure and other activities.

The findings from the 2024 survey illustrate the gender gap in unpaid work.

Among people aged 15–59, 92.9 per cent of women participated in unpaid domestic services for household members during the reference period, compared with 30.4 per cent of men.

For unpaid caregiving services, the participation rate was 41 per cent among women and 21.4 per cent among men.

The survey also found that 25 per cent of women aged 15–59 participated in employment and related activities, compared with 75 per cent of men.

These figures are not a direct measure of the number of hours worked by every woman or man. They indicate the proportion participating in the respective activities during the survey’s reference period.

Nevertheless, they demonstrate how domestic and caregiving responsibilities are distributed unequally.

The findings also underline why employment statistics alone cannot provide a complete picture of women’s daily economic contribution.

A woman may be outside paid employment while spending a substantial part of her day performing unpaid work that supports her family and community.

The proposed PLFS questions could provide more regular information on these activities than relying exclusively on periodic Time Use Surveys.

Could the new data change how women’s employment is understood?

The significance of the proposed changes lies not simply in counting more activities. It lies in the possibility of understanding the relationship between unpaid work and women’s participation in the labour market.

For example, a woman who is not currently employed may want to work for pay but be unable to do so because of childcare responsibilities, elder care or other household obligations.

Without information about these responsibilities, the reasons behind her absence from paid employment can remain difficult to assess.

The proposed revisions could help researchers examine whether unpaid domestic responsibilities are associated with women’s decisions about seeking work, accepting employment or remaining outside the labour force.

They may also help identify differences between rural and urban households, where access to childcare, transport, employment opportunities and support systems can vary.

However, survey data alone cannot establish that caregiving is the sole reason a woman is not employed. Education, health, local employment conditions, wages, safety and personal circumstances can also influence labour-market participation.

The value of the new questions will therefore depend on how they are designed, collected and interpreted.

Why counting unpaid work matters for policy

The absence of detailed data on unpaid work can make it difficult to understand the full extent of women’s economic responsibilities.

Better information could help policymakers assess where care services are needed, whether women face barriers to paid employment and how household responsibilities affect their access to economic opportunities.

It could also contribute to discussions on childcare services, support for elderly and disabled people, workplace flexibility and social protection.

But measurement is only one part of the issue.

Recording unpaid caregiving in a survey does not automatically provide a caregiver with wages, pension benefits, paid leave or access to social security.

Nor does it guarantee that governments will introduce policies to redistribute care responsibilities more equally between women and men.

Those outcomes require separate policy decisions, resources and implementation.

The proposed survey changes could provide a more detailed evidence base for such discussions. Their impact will depend on whether the information is used to shape policy.

What will remain invisible?

The proposed changes could improve the understanding of unpaid work, but important questions remain.

Will the survey capture the intensity and duration of caregiving responsibilities, or primarily whether a person participated in an activity?

Will it distinguish between occasional household tasks and the continuous responsibilities of caring for a child, an elderly parent or a person with a disability?

Will the data reveal how unpaid work affects a woman’s ability to seek employment, or will it mainly record the activities she performs?

These questions matter because participation in an activity does not necessarily reveal its full burden.

A woman who prepares a meal and a woman who spends most of the day caring for a family member may both be recorded as participating in unpaid household activities. Their time commitments, responsibilities and ability to take up paid employment may be very different.

The methodology and the eventual published data will determine how much of this difference can be understood.

The survey’s proposed inclusion of unpaid work is therefore an important development, but it should not be treated as a complete measure of women’s economic contribution.

A step towards making women’s work visible

India’s proposed labour survey changes come at a time when the relationship between women’s employment, unpaid care and economic independence is receiving greater attention.

The 2024 Time Use Survey has already documented the unequal distribution of domestic and caregiving responsibilities. The proposed PLFS revisions could make information on these activities available through a more regular statistical exercise.

For women whose days are shaped by work that rarely comes with wages or formal recognition, better measurement could be a meaningful step.

It could help researchers and policymakers ask more precise questions about employment, care responsibilities and the barriers women face in accessing paid work.

But the larger challenge remains: ensuring that the work women perform is not only counted, but also considered in decisions about economic opportunity, public services and social protection.

A survey can make unpaid work more visible. Whether that visibility leads to meaningful change will depend on what policymakers do with the evidence.