Women across coastal Shyamnagar and the chars of Kurigram spend their days fishing, farming, tending animals, and making goods to sell. Yet unpaid care work, distant water sources, unsafe markets, and repeated climate shocks keep that labour from ever becoming steady income or savings.

Can a budget be truly gender responsive if it does not adequately address the unpaid care burden that keeps millions of women out of the labour market?

If unpaid household and care work were replaced by market services, it would significantly increase GDP

Women in Bangladesh spend about 25 percent of their time daily on unpaid care work while men spend 3.3 percent of their time on the same.