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Report6 November 2025Mobility as Social Protection: Fare-free Public Bus Transport and Women’s Economic Participation- A Study of Karnataka’s “Shakti Yojane”
by Shipra Nigam et al.
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The Need to Recognise ‘Volunteer’ Care Work
16 March 2026
ABOUT THIS Perspective
India's welfare state is held together by over five million women, namely the ASHA workers, Anganwadi workers, and mid-day meal workers & helpers, who deliver essential public services daily, yet remain classified as 'volunteers', denied fair wages, formal contracts, and basic protections. This is no accident: with women already spending nearly twice as much time on caregiving as men, the state has long relied on deeply entrenched gender norms to keep care work cheap and informal. In this piece Renjini Rajagopalan makes the case for why it's time to move beyond the honorary label and recognise care work for what it truly is: work.
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