For years, CSR programmes aimed at women have focused on familiar themes such as scholarships, skill training, self-help groups and entrepreneurship. But a more fundamental barrier is increasingly coming into focus: women cannot participate fully in the economy if they carry a disproportionate share of unpaid care work.India’s 2024 Time Use Survey found that 81.5% of women aged six and above participated in unpaid domestic services on a given day, compared with 27.1% of men. Women who participated spent an average of 289 minutes a day on such work, against 88 minutes for men. The gap is also visible in unpaid caregiving, where 34% of women participated compared with 17.9% of men.The economic consequences are clear. India’s female labour force participation rate was 40% in 2025, compared with 79.1% for men. Among women outside the labour force, 44.4% cited childcare or personal commitments in homemaking as their main reason.This is changing how the private sector can think about inclusion. Instead of asking only how to train or employ more women, CSR programmes can address the conditions that prevent them from entering and staying in paid work.
Women continue to shoulder a far greater share of unpaid domestic and caregiving work than men, a gap that affects labour-force participation and is increasingly being addressed through childcare, livelihood and inclusion-focused CSR initiatives.
Childcare is an obvious starting point. The govt’s Palna scheme provides day-care facilities for children aged six months to six years, including early stimulation, pre-school education, nutrition and health services. By March 2025, 11,395 Anganwadi-cum-creches had been approved across states and UTs, although only 1,761 were operational.This gap creates space for corporate and civil society partnerships. Vedanta’s Nand Ghar initiative is one example. Its centres are upgraded Anganwadis providing nutrition, digital early learning, healthcare and women’s empowerment. The initiative reports nearly 13,000 Nand Ghars across 16 states.Mobile Creches offers another model, combining childcare with support for children from marginalised communities. It reports having reached 1 million children, trained more than 20,000 workers and supported over 5,000 childcare centres.The significance of such programmes is that childcare need not be viewed simply as a welfare service. It can be economic infrastructure. If reliable childcare frees up women’s time, the next question is whether that time translates into income, assets and greater economic agency.This is where CSR-backed livelihood programmes can connect with care interventions. Mann Deshi Foundation, for example, reports having supported more than 1 million women, with 9 lakh reached through its women’s business schools since 2012.Its 2024-25 data shows that 94% of trained women reported an increase in monthly average income, with the average rise at 56%, while 76% gained ownership of assets. Its Rural Chamber of Commerce for Women reports reaching 1.3 lakh women for financial linkages, with average monthly income rising from Rs 4,300 before intervention to Rs 15,296 afterwards.The lesson for CSR is important. Training women without addressing constraints on their time, access to finance and ability to reach markets can produce limited gains. A more complete intervention connects childcare and care services with skilling, credit, entrepreneurship, market access and asset ownership.The same principle applies to disability inclusion. CSR-led organisations are increasingly helping move disability programmes from charity towards employment and economic participation. EnAble India reports 25,908 placements and inclusive hiring across more than 1,725 companies, reaching 59 districts in 16 states. Its model focuses not merely on training people with disabilities but also on changing job roles, sensitising employers, and creating pathways into the labour market.Other CSR and civil society partnerships address livelihood barriers among vulnerable groups. PRADAN reports working with 3.4 million households across 42,500 villages, with 65% of those reached belonging to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe communities. Its livelihood initiatives reached 2.5 million households in FY2024-25. Magic Bus reached 2.14 lakh young people during the year, with women accounting for 60% of participants in its livelihood programmes.What emerges is a broader understanding of inclusion. Women cannot be empowered simply by giving them a training certificate. A person with a disability cannot be included simply by providing an assistive device. A migrant worker cannot be protected merely by registration on a government portal. Effective social investment must address the barriers between a person and economic participation: care, mobility, documentation, accessibility, skills, credit and employment.
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For CSR, that represents a shift from funding individual interventions to building pathways. The opportunity is significant. The World Bank estimates that investment in the care sector could generate up to 299 million jobs globally by 2035, while the International Labour Organisation has highlighted the economic returns from investing in childcare and early childhood education.
India’s CSR ecosystem can therefore play a role beyond supplementing govt schemes. It can test models, provide last-mile capacity, bring employers into social programmes and help demonstrate what works. But corporate and civil society initiatives should complement, not substitute for, public systems.The next phase of CSR-led inclusion may consequently be less about asking how many beneficiaries a programme has reached and more about what changed in their lives. Did a childcare centre allow a woman to take up paid work? Did skilling lead to a sustained increase in income? Did an accessibility intervention result in a job? Did financial linkage lead to asset ownership?If CSR can answer those questions, women’s empowerment and inclusion will become more than programme categories. They will become measurable pathways to economic participation.
