Why Care for the Care Economy: Empirical Evidence from Nepal

Using data from the Nepal Living Standards Survey-2010/11, and an instrumental variables approach, we find gender-differentiated impact of unpaid care work on employment outcomes. While for an additional hour of caregiving per week, women and men experience commensurate declines in their weekly employment hours, the employment likelihood decreases only for women. The conceptual framework, motivated by the Capability Approach, delineates contemporaneous effects of undertaking unpaid care work on the caregiver and its wider intergenerational and societal effects in a developing country context. The study employs time-use data to provide evidence on the impact of unpaid care work; it is also the first of its kind in the context of Nepal.