Despite significant strides towards gender equality, political equality remains a distant goal for women in India. As of October 2025, India ranks 150 out of 193 countries in the Inter-Parliamentary Union's monthly ranking of women in national parliaments. Even though the puzzle of “missing women” has been subjected to extensive scrutiny since the “reservation debate” in the 1990s, the absence of women in the higher echelons of politics has not been explored sufficiently through the lens of care labour in the Indian context. According to the latest Time Use Survey (TUS), in India, female participants from the age group (15-59) spent almost twice as much time as the male participants spent on care work responsibilities.
My research examines "progressive political ambition" and the "scope of political mobility" among women in the state of Kerala through the lens of the care labour they perform daily. Despite consistently good performance on the indicators of gender equality, comparable to some of the advanced industrial countries, women in Kerala have had a minimal presence in the higher levels of politics. This context challenges the assumption that socio-economic development will naturally translate into higher political representation. This study uses data collected through semi-structured interviews with political representatives and party activists from four districts in Kerala to analyse how care labour stops women from climbing the political ladder in an otherwise favourable social and political context.
I argue here that, unlike in the individual-centric US context, where political ambition and mobility have been mostly explored, in a party-centred context like Kerala, care labour does not directly affect women’s progressive political ambition but curtails their advancement by affecting their “political capital”. Contrary to popular assumption, I argue that women who have entered politics through the constitutional amendment are willing to take up higher responsibilities but lack experience, exposure and resources compared to their male counterparts due to the disproportionate burden of care labour. This paper contributes to the discussion on care work as a major supply-side hurdle that impacts women’s struggle for political equality.
