For the first time, Sri Lanka has generated estimates of the economic value of unpaid care work, drawing on data from the 2017 National Time Use Survey (NTUS) [DCS, 2020]. These estimates underscore the need to rethink how we value work, and who benefits from it.

Making the Invisible Visible

Traditionally, economic growth is measured by GDP, which tracks the value of goods and services traded in the market. However, this focus neglects a significant portion of labor—unpaid work and care work. This includes everything from cooking and cleaning to caring for children, the elderly, and other dependents. These tasks are not just time-consuming but are also crucial for the smooth functioning of the economy. The exclusion of unpaid work from the System of National Accounts (SNA) is arbitrary. For instance, early editions of Paul Samuelson’s Economicstextbook noted that if a man married his maid, GDP would fall, despite her continued contributions.

Valuing unpaid care work helps expose economic distortions, enhances our understanding of household dynamics, and reveals the support structures underpinning the formal economy. It also advocates for fairer policies, such as social protection for caregivers and investments in care infrastructure.

A Closer Look at Valuing Unpaid Work

Valuing unpaid care work involves measuring time spent on tasks and assigning a monetary value to that time. We utilized data from the 2017 NTUS, which gathered information from over 17,000 respondents in more than 6,000 households. We then assigned a monetary value using wage rates from the 2019 Labour Force Survey.

The most widely applied approach to valuing unpaid care work is the replacement cost method. This method estimates how much it would cost to replace unpaid work with paid labor. For example, how much would it cost to hire a domestic worker or a childcare provider to perform the same tasks? This method is preferred to the alternative opportunity cost approach which estimates the value of unpaid care by calculating the income a person forgoes when they engage in unpaid work instead of paid employment. While it highlights the trade-offs caregivers make, it misrepresents the value of care work based on who performs it. For instance, a professional’s time may be valued higher than that of a lower-wage worker, even if they perform the same care tasks at home. Our study chose the replacement cost method, assuming that household members and hired workers have equal productivity.

Within the replacement cost method, the Generalist Wage Approach values all forms of unpaid care and household labor equally, estimating the economic contribution of care work as if it were replaced by a generalist paid worker. For Sri Lanka, we used the wage of a domestic cleaner as a lower bound and that of a primary school teacher as an upper bound. This resulted in unpaid care work contributing 13% of GDP when valued at the domestic cleaner’s wage, and 42% when using the teacher’s wage. When we applied the average wage of an early childhood educator, the contribution stood at 19%. A further estimate, based on Sri Lanka’s 2019 minimum wage, valued unpaid care work at 10% of GDP, reflecting the particularly low level of the minimum wage at that time (which has since been increased).

In contrast, the Specialist Wage Approach differentiates between the various tasks involved in unpaid care work. This method assigns a wage based on the type of unpaid work. For example, the value of time spent cooking is calculated using the wage of a food preparer, while childcare is valued using the wage of a childcare worker. Using this method resulted in unpaid care work contributing 14% to Sri Lanka’s GDP. 

The Economic Impact of Unpaid Care Work

The numbers speak volumes: in Sri Lanka, unpaid care work’s contribution to GDP ranges from 10% to 42%, depending on the valuation method used, and overshadows the contribution of agriculture—a traditionally dominant sector—which contributes around 7% of GDP. This comparison underscores how vital unpaid care work is to the country’s overall economy. Yet, it remains largely invisible in official statistics.

The gendered nature of this labor is also clear. The 2017 Time Use Survey revealed that women in Sri Lanka perform the vast majority of unpaid work. When valued at specialist wages, women’s unpaid work and care work alone would increase GDP by as much as 12%. This makes a strong case for policies aimed at redistributing this labor more equitably, both between men and women and between the household and the state.

Why It Matters for Policy

Valuing unpaid work and care work helps shift the conversation toward policies that support caregivers—whether through improved infrastructure, such as affordable childcare and elder care services, or through social protection measures for those who provide unpaid care. It also allows for more informed economic modeling. For example, countries like Turkey have used macro-micro policy simulations to assess the impact of expanding care infrastructure. These models show that investments in care can create more jobs and improve well-being more effectively than traditional infrastructure investments. In Sri Lanka, integrating similar approaches could lead to the design of policies that promote more equitable and inclusive economic growth.

Conclusion

Valuing unpaid care work is not just about adding a monetary figure to invisible labor. It is about recognizing the essential role that care plays in supporting both households and the economy. Hopefully, the estimates provided by this study will mark an important step forward in making the care economy visible, and challenge long-standing assumptions about what constitutes valuable work. 

Image details: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/