Beyond the verdict: the unfinished struggle for homemakers’ labour rights

The historical trajectory of homemaking or unpaid labour in the domestic spaces of families in India has remained debatable forever. The concept of homemaking in particular—what we generally call the primary tasks of housewives—has come into the direct purview of the Apex Court in India in recent times. In a verdict delivered on 11 June 2026, a Division Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N.K. Singh observed that the contributions of homemakers in India go beyond care work within the family. As they play the role of mothering children and teaching family values and social etiquette to them, the judges referred to them as nation-builders.

The idea of homemaking or the work of a homemaker came under special scrutiny after the verdict was delivered by the apex court. The verdict clearly rejects the term housewives, as it does not incorporate the question of women's agency and devalues their labour.

Undoubtedly, this verdict created a historical landmark in women's rights activism and research in India. The verdict came in a case filed by the family members of a woman in Punjab named Reshma, who died in a road accident on 25 November 2001. Her husband and three children approached the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal and sought compensation for her death. The Tribunal settled the matter within two years by awarding the family Rs. 2 lakh 42 thousand as compensation. Reshma’s family members were not satisfied with the settlement, and they pursued the case before the Punjab and Haryana High Court to enhance the amount. The High Court enhanced the compensation on 11 December 2024, raising it to Rs. 8 lakh 43 thousand and 400, along with 7.5 per cent interest from the date of filing the claim. The High Court order also directed that any further delay in payment would increase the interest amount accordingly.

However, the direction of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2024 could not satisfy the family of the deceased Reshma, as the matter had been delayed for more than a decade. The family appealed to the Supreme Court of India. In its verdict, the Supreme Court clarified that the inordinate delay in the High Court's decision had been caused by a fire that broke out in 2011, which delayed justice for the family members of the deceased woman, Reshma. The verdict of the apex court held that the monthly income of a woman as a homemaker should be considered equivalent to Rs. 30,000 per month. It added that this amount should be revised every three years with a 10 percent increase to account for future prospects, as the woman had died at the age of 35. The verdict also added funeral expenses amounting to Rs. 18,150, bringing the final compensation awarded to Rs. 62 lakh 77 thousand and 900. The verdict further stated that any delay in payment would attract the same rate of interest as directed by the High Court.

The verdict of the apex court recognises the labour of women and the importance of homemaking or unpaid care work as invisible, labour-intensive work. It recognises this by quantifying such labour in monetary terms, which is undoubtedly an eye-opener and lays a cornerstone for raising questions concerning the rights of women and their bodily labour within domestic spaces. Despite this legal recognition, a stark reality persists: domestic labour fails to command genuine dignity within the household because it remains unwaged. In many instances, women continue to perceive their domestic output not as an arena for asserting structural rights, but as a complex negotiation for immediate economic survival.

To understand the contemporary landscape of unpaid care work more precisely, we must think about the history behind the making of the ideal housewife during the colonial era. The concept of the housewife was constructed as Indian men started obtaining, or aspiring to, jobs under the colonial government in administrative or clerical positions during the nineteenth century. The emergence of a salaried, government job-oriented middle class gradually developed a notion of women's chastity by confining women to urban households.

The construction of women's chastity has an interesting historical trajectory intertwined with the teleology of public health jurisprudence in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1868 and 1872 created a new definition of women. In India in particular, the deaths of military personnel due to sexually transmitted diseases, especially syphilis, or Firangi Rog as it was called by indigenous people in the Indian subcontinent, forced the administration to investigate whether women were engaged in prostitution. The reason for this investigation was to identify the source of the disease, as it was sexually transmitted. Initially, the Sanitation Department of India identified sex workers as the source of this contamination. Instead of developing awareness among British military personnel posted in India, the colonial administration began regulating, verifying, and coercing female bodies in an attempt to control the spread of the disease.

The colonial education system introduced the idea of morality, which was essentially Victorian in its thinking; however, in practice, it was largely indigenous. It followed the European patriarchal idea of the housewife —a perfect woman who is beloved, adored, and praised by her husband (the patriarch of the family unit) for her beauty, sense of etiquette, ability to make handicrafts, education, and, most importantly, her pious heart.

In colonial cities, particularly among the Bengali bhadralok class, educated women—enlightened by the British education system—were married to become suitable companions for their husbands while attending social gatherings, and to raise children according to societal expectations. The very existence of women within the middle-class strata has, since then, centred on marital fidelity—which includes the sexual availability of the married woman to her husband, along with an extension of unpaid care work within the household. The household came to be regarded as the territory and jurisdiction of the patriarch in the name of love, fertility, and family bonds.

In a recent study mentioned by Nobel Prize-winning economist Abhijit Binayak Banerjee at a literary festival in Kolkata this year, he observed that women's participation in the workforce is lower than it was 15 years ago. The Nobel laureate argued that more women are now educated and capable of working; however, many either choose not to enter the workforce, or are conditioned by their families not to do so before marriage, as virginity remains an important factor in the matrimonial market. Women in employment, or outside the home for long hours, are still perceived as posing a risk to their sexual purity. He reiterated that, after marriage, women often do not get the opportunity to pursue employment because they are expected to focus on childbearing, raising children, domestic work, and caring for elderly family members. Banerjee, Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, attributes this inequality to society's patriarchal attitude towards women.

Despite this, a survey by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) found that, in India, care is considered ‘a private matter rather than a shared economic concern’. The UNDP posed a pertinent question: when a nation marches forward, who ensures that the home continues to function? The Time Use Survey conducted by the UNDP shows that women aged between 15 and 59 spend seven hours each day on care work. Men spend less than three hours in comparison. Even among the urban population, the ratio remains nearly the same. India’s female labour force participation stands at 31.7 per cent, as women, despite being qualified for employment, are often pulled out of the workforce because of their family responsibilities. These responsibilities largely include unpaid domestic labour—care work.

References:

1) ‘More educated unemployed women in India than there were 15 years ago’: Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, Reported by Shrestha Mukherjee, The Telegraph Online, Published 27.01.26, 09:58 PM, https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/more-educated-unemployed-women-in-india-today-than-there-were-15-years-ago-says-nobel-laureate-abhijit-vinayak-banerjee/cid/2144595

2) Who Cares? Making Care Everyone’s Work, reported by Isabelle Tschan and Sneha Pathak, Published on December 10, 2025.

https://www.undp.org/india/blog/who-cares-making-care-everyones-work

Sangbida Lahiri

Researcher, Social Science