In February 2024, the Indian Supreme Court in Arvind Kumar Pandey v Girish Pandey [2024], stated that the ‘deemed income’ of a homemaker cannot be valued less than the minimum wages notified under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 (‘MWA’), for a daily wager. The ‘deemed income’ subsumed the unpaid domestic and care work (‘UDCW’) provided by the homemaker and was noted to be as crucial to the family livelihood as the tangible income, ‘despite the difficulty in its quantification’.

Traditionally, UDCW has been recognised in India under family and tort laws, where claims have arisen either due to divorce or death of the homemaker, respectively. Initially, the Indian courts recognised UDCW through the category of loss of services to the family. While they compensated by calculating the cost for replacement, for household help to cover the services, they did not account for the unpaid domestic care responsible for developing social, physical and intellectual capacities. This approach is attributable to the patriarchal perception of unpaid domestic care as a moral obligation of a woman, particularly, as a wife and a mother, which deprives it of the status of labour.

However, in later cases, such as Rajam v Manikya Reddy [1988] and National Insurance Co Ltd v Minor Deepika [2009], the courts resorted to a more nuanced approach towards UDCW, noting the narrow legal construction of ‘services’ provided by a homemaker, holding that such services cannot be entirely substituted by outsourcing domestic work. They expanded the understanding of a homemaker’s contribution to the household from unpaid domestic work required to run a household, to unpaid domestic care and work responsible for social reproduction.

In 2010, the Supreme Court also emphasised the unpaid care work done by a homemaker in cases arising under the Motor Vehicle Act 1988 (‘MVA’), a subset of tort law.  In Arun Kumar Agrawal v National Insurance Company, it disagreed with the Delhi High Court for allowing the use of minimum wages for a skilled worker as the baseline for compensating the contribution of deceased homemakers. It reasoned that such an approach inappropriately compared the homemaker to an employee working for a fixed time period and did not consider the ‘personal’ nature of care. Instead, the Court applied of the Second Schedule of MVA, 1988, which pegged the notional value of a homemaker’s income at a third of the husband’s income. In 2019, however, the Madras High Court rejected the application of Clause 6, stating that in an era where women were earning equally or more than their spouses, this was not acceptable. Instead, it awarded the deceased’s prospective wages and an additional 50% of them under the head of ‘future prospects’.

Despite differing approaches towards a homemaker’s contributions, courts in the cases discussed were reluctant to dissociate UDCW from its gendered entrapment and recognise unpaid care as invisibilised labour. UDCW continued to be viewed primarily in terms of familial loss, where the discussion of its nuances did not prompt cognisance of its overarching economic contribution. In Arvind Kumar too, the Supreme Court paid an ode to the altruistic caregiving expected from a woman in a patriarchal society and awarded a lump sum amount without discussing the cost of social reproduction.

Thus, it is unclear whether its reference to minimum wage indicates progress for UCDW and can nudge towards recognition of economic contribution of unpaid domestic care as labour. Such interpretation faces challenges, primarily from objections to commodifying familial ties and value systems. Additionally, MWA, 1948, covered within Indian Labour Law, excludes UCDW from ‘employment’ eligible for compensation. Even as notional value, minimum wage lowers the compensation bar since quantifiable domestic work is grossly underpaid in India. A fairer evaluation of the contributions of a homemaker is possible through the ‘partnership method’ adopted by the Court in Minor Deepika as it can pave the way for a ‘unified conception of worker’ that ties the roles of breadwinner and caregiver in the family as equal contributors to a household unit. The real challenge, thus, lies in whether the Courts can sidestep the rhetoric of UDCW being ‘invaluable’ and assess it as an economic contribution of an equal partnership.