Observing that homemakers deserve to be recognised as “nation builders”, the Supreme Court on Thursday (June 11, 2026) ruled that the unpaid domestic work performed by homemakers must be monetised at a minimum of ₹30,000 per month while calculating compensation for their deaths in road mishaps.

The ruling came in an appeal arising from a motor accident claim in Punjab where a woman named Reshma died in a road accident in November 2001. Her husband and three children approached the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal seeking compensation. While the tribunal awarded compensation in 2003, they approached the High Court to enhance the amount. On appeal, the High Court enhanced the compensation to ₹8.43 lakh with 7.5% interest, providing for a higher rate of interest in case of delay in payment.

Why did Supreme Court quantify labour of homemakers?

A Division Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N.K. Singh observed that the contribution of a homemaker extends beyond the household and plays a vital role in nation-building. “We are of the view that the housewife contributes to the growth of the human being and the nation,” said the Court

Justice Karol stated that “loss of domestic care” would be an additional ground, in addition to the heads of damages previously recognised by the Supreme Court.

The court also said motor accident compensation claims should ordinarily be decided within one year. “Such cases should be decided within a year usually,’ the Bench said.

The Court also noted the need to shift from the stereotypical terminology of daily usage from ‘housewife’ to ‘homemaker’.

As the Court recognised all the aspects of being a homemaker and the unpaid labour that a homemaker undertakes, it directed the Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal (MACT) to award a separate compensation of ₹30,000 per month under the head of ‘domestic care’ in cases involving death of a homemaker.

It clarified that this amount would be treated as the minimum value of a homemaker’s unpaid work and would increase by 10% every three years. If the homemaker also had a paid job, this amount would be awarded in addition to her income.

However, the Court resorted to the application of homemaker to the traditional image of woman. On that regard, the Court said “As a result on one circumstance or another, sometimes unfortunate sometimes not, a man may too need to don the role of a homemaker. It is not to take away from the efforts of these men who also deserve recognition and acknowledgment, but for the purposes of the present case and more particularly the quantification of domestic efforts, we limit its application to the quintessential and traditional image, that of a woman.”

The Court also quoted the Time Use Survey conducted in 2019, which highlights the extent of unpaid domestic and caregiving work, particularly undertaken by women, and said that women aged between 15-59 years spend over seven hours daily on unpaid domestic tasks, compared to less than three hours by men. On an average, women perform 2.6 times more unpaid care giving/domestic work, even when they are otherwise contributing economically.

The Court pointed out that this one-sided scenario is probably one of the reasons why the country has low female labour force participation at 31.7%, since the societal framework generally presumes such responsibilities to be automatically falling upon women. Women’s unpaid care giving work is estimated to contribute 15-17% of India’s GDP, yet it remains unpaid and unrecognised.