Beyond Factories: Why the care economy is Bangladesh’s next growth engine

Bangladesh's development strategy has been the same for decades: increase manufacturing, boost exports, and rely on industries that need a lot of workers, like textiles, to drive growth. This method has worked very well, lifting millions of people out of poverty and making the country a major player in global value chains. But as Bangladesh tries to become an upper-middle-income economy, it is becoming clearer that a factory-centered growth model has its limits. The care economy is one important area that is still mostly ignored in economic planning. 

The care economy includes both paid and unpaid work, such as childcare, eldercare, healthcare, disability support, and housework. These are services that help people live their daily lives and make it possible for them to work. People have always thought of these activities as social welfare issues instead of ways to boost the economy. This way of thinking is not only out of date, but also expensive. Putting money into the care economy is not a distraction from growth policy; it is necessary for development that is long-lasting, inclusive, and strong.

Illustration: TBS

Human capital—healthy, educated, and productive workers is what makes the economy grow in the end. The care economy is a key part of building and keeping this capital. Good childcare helps young children grow and learn, which is closely linked to better job and school outcomes later in life. Adequate healthcare and eldercare make sure that adults who are of working age don't have to leave their jobs to care for someone full-time. If you don't pay attention to these connections, you may miss hidden inefficiencies that standard growth metrics don't always show. 

Most of the care work in Bangladesh is done by women, and most of it is unpaid or poorly paid. Despite significant improvements in women's education and employment in manufacturing, the number of women working is still much lower than the number of men. One big reason is that the burden of unpaid care responsibilities is not shared equally. When women are expected to take care of children, older people, and the home without much help from the government, it makes it harder for them to get or keep a job. This is a loss for women and for the economy as a whole. 

The demographic changes in Bangladesh make this issue even more important. The country still has a relatively young population, but birth rates have gone down, and life expectancy has gone up. As time goes on, the number of older people will grow, which will increase the need for long-term care services. If we don't invest in this, most of the burden will fall on households, and again, mostly on women. This will make gender inequality worse and lower the number of people who can work. Planning for the care needs of an aging society is not a future concern; it is a current policy challenge. 

Even though factories and infrastructure are important, the focus on them has made productivity seem too narrow. People often see roads, ports, and industrial zones as signs of progress, but they often see care services as "consumption" rather than "investment." This difference is not helpful. Care spending creates jobs directly because care services are hard to automate and require a lot of work. It also creates jobs indirectly by making it easier for more people to work, especially women. The jobs in the care sector are based in the area and are less likely to be affected by changes in global demand than jobs in some capital-intensive industries. 

International experience shows that putting money into the care economy can pay off big time. Countries that have added more childcare and eldercare services have seen more women working, more money coming in from taxes, and more money coming into households. In Bangladesh, where millions of educated women are not working in the formal labor market, even small improvements to the care infrastructure could open up a lot of economic opportunities. This is especially important now that automation and new technologies are making some traditional manufacturing jobs less in demand. 

The quality of jobs is also closely related to the care economy. A lot of the people who work in care right now, like domestic workers, community health aides, and childcare providers, do so in unsafe and unregulated settings. Training, regulation, and fair pay would make these jobs more formal and professional, which would improve the quality of the service and create good jobs. This fits with larger goals of lowering informality and raising labor standards, not keeping a low-wage balance. 

Even though there are these benefits, the government in Bangladesh still doesn't spend much on care services. There aren't many places to take care of kids, especially for families with low or middle incomes. There isn't much institutional support for elder care; most of it is done by families. Even though healthcare costs are going down, families still have to pay a lot out of their own pockets. These gaps make it hard for families to choose between care and paid work, which often hurts women's ability to work. 

To treat the care economy as a growth policy, we need to change the way we set priorities: 

First, care should be included in national development plans, not seen as a leftover social problem. This means taking unpaid care work into account in economic analysis and thinking about how it affects the amount of work available and productivity. 

Second, there needs to be targeted public investment in infrastructure for childcare, community health services, and eldercare, especially in cities and towns near cities where there are a lot of job opportunities for women. 

Third, policy design should promote collective accountability for caregiving. This includes not only government support but also incentives for businesses to offer childcare and flexible work hours, as well as social norms that encourage men to take care of children. Even well-designed services may not have their full effect if they don't take gender norms into account. 

The question is not if Bangladesh can afford to invest in the care economy, but if it can afford not to. Even though the costs of doing nothing don't show up directly in budget statements, they are still very high. These costs include fewer women working, lower productivity, and more care responsibilities. Also, investments in care tend to create a lot of jobs, which means that every taka spent creates many rounds of economic activity. 

Bangladesh wants to grow in more ways than just making clothes and cheap goods, and the care economy is a good way to do that. It doesn't compete with industrial policy; it works with it by making sure that workers are healthy, supported, and able to fully participate in the economy. It also backs a growth path that is more inclusive, one that knows that factories and exports aren't the only things that help the economy grow. The systems that keep people's lives going are also important.  Bangladesh's growth in the future will depend not only on what it makes, but also on how it helps the people who make it. Putting money into care instead of factories is not an easy choice. It is smart economics.