Every day, billions of hours of essential work go unrecorded. Meals are cooked, children are cared for, elderly parents are tended to, homes are maintained. This work keeps families functioning and economies running—yet it appears nowhere in GDP statistics. The people doing most of this work are women, and their contribution remains economically invisible.

When economists finally started measuring unpaid care work, they discovered something remarkable. In many countries, this invisible economy is worth more than manufacturing, retail, or agriculture. Recognizing what women's work is really worth isn't just about fairness—it's about understanding what actually makes development possible.

The formal economy we measure and celebrate stands on a foundation we mostly ignore. Someone has to raise the next generation of workers. Someone has to care for people too old or sick to care for themselves. Someone has to transform raw groceries into meals and dirty clothes into clean ones. Without this work, nothing else functions.

Economists estimate that globally, unpaid care work is worth between 10 and 40 percent of GDP, depending on the country and methodology. The International Labour Organization found that if care work were valued at minimum wage rates, it would represent 9 percent of global GDP—$11 trillion annually. And women perform roughly three-quarters of it.

This creates a hidden subsidy. When a woman spends hours caring for children so her husband can work full-time, her labor is subsidizing his employer. When grandmothers watch grandchildren so parents can earn wages, they're providing childcare that would otherwise cost money. Development happens because of this unpaid work, not despite it.

Takeaway

What we count as 'the economy' is only the visible part. The uncounted work of care is not separate from economic development—it is what makes development possible.

Women in developing countries often work longer total hours than men—but fewer of those hours are paid. A farmer's wife might wake before dawn to fetch water, prepare breakfast, and get children ready for school before spending the day in fields. Then she returns to cook dinner, help with homework, and care for elderly relatives. Her husband's workday has an end; hers often doesn't.

This creates what development economists call time poverty—having so little discretionary time that opportunities become impossible to pursue. A woman who spends four hours daily collecting water and firewood cannot attend job training. A mother without childcare cannot start a small business. The double burden of paid and unpaid work traps women in a cycle where their capabilities remain undeveloped.

The consequences ripple outward. Daughters pulled from school to help with care work become women with less education. Mothers too exhausted to help with homework raise children who struggle academically. Time poverty isn't just about individual opportunity—it shapes intergenerational development trajectories.

Takeaway

Poverty isn't only about lacking money. Lacking time—the hours needed to learn, rest, or pursue opportunity—is its own form of poverty that statistics rarely capture.

When countries invest in care infrastructure—childcare centers, elder care services, piped water, electricity—something powerful happens. Women's time is freed, and suddenly choices multiply. A mother with affordable childcare can take a job, start a business, or continue her education. A village with a nearby water source gives girls hours back for schoolwork.

Research from Latin America, Africa, and Asia consistently shows that care infrastructure has multiplier effects. Public investment in childcare creates jobs directly (caregivers, teachers, administrators) while also enabling women's employment in every other sector. Studies in South Africa found that access to childcare increased mothers' employment rates by 7 to 18 percentage points.

This reframes how we think about development spending. Care infrastructure isn't social welfare separate from economic policy—it's foundational economic infrastructure, as essential as roads or electricity grids. Countries that have developed rapidly, from South Korea to Costa Rica, invested heavily in education and care services. They understood that enabling women's full economic participation wasn't a cost to be minimized but an investment that compounds.

Takeaway

Care infrastructure isn't charity—it's economic investment. Every hour freed from unpaid work becomes an hour available for education, entrepreneurship, or employment.

Measuring the unmeasured is a first step. When we see that women's unpaid work rivals entire economic sectors in value, it becomes harder to ignore. When we understand that time poverty blocks opportunity as surely as money poverty, we can design policies that address both. When we recognize care as infrastructure, we can invest in it accordingly.

The good news is that some countries are already making this shift. Policies supporting parental leave, public childcare, and elderly care create immediate benefits while building foundations for sustained development. Women's work has always been worth something. It's time our economic systems reflected that truth.