Are we training our daughters to be unpaid workers?

Unpaid care work is the everyday labor that keeps households functioning without a wage. It includes cooking, cleaning, fetching water, raising children, growing food for the family, and caring for older relatives. It matters because someone gives up time to do it, while official economic measures record little or none of its value.

Nepal’s labour survey counts paid or profit-making work. A woman may spend six hours preparing food, cleaning, caring for children, and helping relatives, yet the survey can classify her as outside the labour force. The rules therefore measure what women’s work earns, not how much work they perform.

This creates a major blind spot. The ILO estimates unpaid care at 9 percent of world output across 64 countries, with women doing three-quarters of those hours. In Nepal, leaving this work uncounted hides women’s contribution and can make their employment appear far smaller than it is.

Nepali women spend close to six hours each day on domestic and care work. Men spend 2.25 hours on the same work. This difference shows that household labor is divided sharply by gender, even when official employment figures suggest that relatively few women work.

The figures come from a 2022 time-use study of 3,500 households in Bagmati and Madhesh provinces. Women’s hours include tasks such as cooking, cleaning, fetching water, caring for children, and looking after older relatives. Men’s lower average does not mean they do no household work, but it shows the much larger burden carried by women.

The gap has economic consequences. Women have fewer hours available for paid jobs, education, or other opportunities. The study supports the World Bank’s conclusion that most Nepali women work, but much of their work is unpaid. Official labour figures hide this daily contribution.

The article values six hours of unpaid household work at Nepal’s minimum wage of Rs101 an hour. Across about 2,190 hours a year, that produces roughly Rs221,000 for one woman. This is a replacement-cost estimate: it asks what the work might cost if someone had to be paid to perform it.

The estimate covers cooking, cleaning, fetching water, childcare, and elder care. It is described as a floor because the minimum wage is the lowest legal rate, while hiring separate domestic workers in Kathmandu would cost more. The article also adds about Rs39,000 for one daily hour of less visible household work, valued at Rs107 an hour.

Together, the estimate reaches close to Rs260,000 a year, or about $1,900. That exceeds Nepal’s 2024 GDP per person of $1,447. Yet this value appears neither in GDP nor on a payslip, and families may not recognize it either.

Labour-force participation usually records people working for pay or profit, or seeking such work. Nepal’s 2017-18 survey therefore reports participation of 26.3 percent for women, compared with 53.8 percent for men. The figure follows the survey’s rules, but those rules exclude much of women’s daily labor.

A woman cooking, cleaning, fetching water, growing food for her family, raising children, or caring for relatives may be working for hours without being counted. Nepal’s 2022 time-use study found women spending close to six hours daily on domestic and care work. The World Bank likewise concluded that most Nepali women work, but most of it is unpaid.

The apparent gap is therefore partly a measurement problem. Paid jobs added over the past decade went mainly to men, while women’s household work remained invisible. The 2023 participation figures changed little: 28.7 percent for women, against a much higher rate for men.

When women spend more time on unpaid care, fewer hours remain for paid employment, education, or skill-building. The economy loses potential earnings, while national statistics understate the work already being done at home. Women also face lower pay when they do enter paid work, widening the cost beyond lost working hours.

The article estimates Nepal’s employment gap at about 34 percent, compared with a cross-country average of about 20 percent. Applied to Nepal’s $42.9 billion 2024 GDP, the difference suggests roughly $9-15 billion in lost output. The author then assumes one third is linked to how girls were educated, producing an estimated $3-5 billion annual cost.

This is explicitly the author’s arithmetic, not a study pricing Nepal’s losses directly. Care burdens, social norms, and job locations also matter. Still, the pattern points to a lost generation: women schooled for fewer years and later paid less or not at all.

Families often invest where they expect a return. A daughter’s potential return is hidden twice: her unpaid household work is not counted, and paid work generally pays less. This can make parents treat sons’ education as the better investment, even though the decision limits girls’ future opportunities.

Shaleen Khanal’s 2018 research, using three rounds of the Nepal Living Standards Survey, found that parents spend more on sons’ schooling in both villages and cities. Sons are more likely to attend private schools. When money is tight, the son goes to a private school while the daughter attends a government school.

The 2021 census records a later literacy difference: 83.6 percent among men and 69.4 percent among women. Fewer years or lower-quality schooling can reduce women’s access to paid work and earnings. Over time, that reinforces the same expectations that caused families to invest less in daughters.

GDP measures the market value of goods and services produced in an economy. Labour-force participation measures the share of working-age people who are working or seeking work. These indicators are useful for tracking market activity, but they are not complete measures of all productive effort.

A woman can spend six hours cooking, cleaning, fetching water, raising children, and caring for relatives without receiving wages. Because Nepal’s labour survey counts work done for pay or profit, she may not be classified as part of the labour force. Since the household receives no market payment, that labor also does not enter GDP in the usual way.

The result is a statistical blind spot. Nepal’s figures show low female participation, while time-use research shows extensive unpaid work. The article values one woman’s household labor at about Rs260,000 yearly, demonstrating why better measurement matters for policy, education decisions, and understanding economic well-being.