What if one of Asia’s biggest barriers to economic growth is something that barely appears in the national accounts?

Across Asia, millions of women are unable to take up a job, work longer hours or pursue a career because someone must care for a child, an ageing parent or a family member. We tend to call this a family matter. Or a women’s issue. Or a social welfare challenge. It is all of these, but it is also something more fundamental: an economic issue.

An economy cannot reach its potential when much of its workforce is constrained because the basic infrastructure of care is missing. Nor can an ageing Asia sustain productivity and living standards if families are expected to absorb ever-growing care responsibilities. The care economy must, therefore, move from the margins of social policy to the centre of economic policy.

As investors, philanthropists, entrepreneurs and policymakers gather in New Delhi for the AVPN Global Conference, Asia should ask a different question about impact investing: not simply how capital can address social problems, but how it can help build the economic systems that enable growth.

Women’s participation

The economic cost of inadequate care is substantial. Women undertake most unpaid care work and when responsibilities become too demanding, are usually the ones who leave paid employment, reduce their hours or turn down career opportunities. Businesses lose talent, families lose income, governments lose potential tax revenues and economies lose productive capacity.

We cannot ask women to participate more fully in the economy while assuming they will continue to provide unlimited unpaid care at home. Asia’s demographic transformation makes this increasingly urgent. Families are becoming smaller; urbanisation and migration are changing traditional family structures; more women are entering paid employment; and populations across much of Asia are ageing rapidly.

This creates a challenge, but also an enormous economic opportunity.

Across developing Asia, the commercial care ecosystem remains underdeveloped. Childcare centres, eldercare providers, home-care services, assisted living, disability-care services, training institutions and technology platforms exist, but many remain small, fragmented or informal. Entrepreneurs trying to build these businesses face significant barriers.

Finance is one. Care enterprises can be perceived as too small, fragmented or difficult to scale, while revenue models are uncertain where households have limited ability to pay.

Regulation is another. Care sits at the intersection of health, education, labour and social protection. Providers can face complicated licensing requirements and inconsistent standards. Yet weak regulation can also allow poor-quality providers to flourish and undermine confidence in the sector.

The availability of qualified workforce is a third constraint. Quality care requires skilled workers, yet care workers are often poorly paid and lack recognised career paths. Without investment in training and better working conditions, expansion risks creating more low-paid and insecure employment.

These are not reasons to stay away from the care economy. They are reasons to invest in it.

Impact investors and philanthropies can help build an emerging market while generating social and economic returns. Capital can help enterprises develop viable models and scale; blended finance can reduce risk and attract commercial investment; and philanthropy can support innovation and workforce development where returns will take time to emerge. Governments can establish standards, finance essential services and create an enabling regulatory environment.

Investment in care can generate multiple returns: financial returns for enterprises and investors; employment for care workers; greater economic participation for women; better outcomes for children and older people; and stronger, more resilient communities.

But the answer cannot simply be to commercialise care. If quality services are available only to those who can afford them, inequality will deepen. And if care workers remain poorly paid and insecure, we will simply have shifted care from unpaid households into low-paid employment.

The objective should instead be to build a care ecosystem in which governments, families, communities, businesses, philanthropy and investors each have a role. The AVPN Global Conference offers an opportunity to look beyond individual projects and ask how capital can help create markets that are currently missing. The care economy should be high on that agenda.

India’s leadership potential

India, in particular, has an opportunity to lead. It combines a large working-age population with rising female aspirations, rapid urbanisation and a growing elderly population. Yet affordable, quality childcare, eldercare and other services have not kept pace.

India does not need to choose between public provision and private enterprise. It needs both. The government must set standards, finance essential services and ensure affordability. Entrepreneurs can develop new models; investors can provide capital to test and scale them; and philanthropy can take risks that commercial capital cannot.

This is not simply about creating another category for impact investors. It is about recognising a market that has been hiding in plain sight.

Care enables people to work, children to develop, older people to live with dignity, and women to participate more fully in the economy. It also creates jobs and markets.

The question is not “Can we afford to invest in the care economy?” It is “Can Asia afford the economic cost of not investing in it?”

For too long, care has been treated as background to the “real” economy. But businesses need workers who can participate fully; economies need healthy, educated children; and ageing societies need systems that do not place the entire burden on families.

The opportunity for impact investors is therefore bigger than financing individual care enterprises. It is about helping create a market that can generate decent jobs, unlock women’s economic participation, support families, and deliver better outcomes for children and older people.

The care economy is not the economy’s safety net. It is part of its foundation.

If Asia wants its next chapter of growth to be both faster and more inclusive, it must stop treating care as something women provide for free — and start treating it as infrastructure worth investing in.

Dr. Kapil Kapoor is Regional Director for Asia with IDRC. A Ph.D. in economics, he has held leadership positions at the African Development Bank and World Bank