Article The Invisible Workers: Capturing Home-based Work in India Ellina Samantroy 1 Abstract The present paper is contextualised within the backdrop of high informality and a declining female labour force participation in India. Women in India are pre- dominantly in the informal sector engaged in various kinds of precarious employ- ment including home based work that remains unaccounted and undercounted in National Accounting Statistics. Since the home based workers are not into a formal employment relationship and mostly work within the domains of the household, they largely remain outside the purview of social protection. The present paper provides an insight into home based work in India and tries to locate home based workers and their employment conditions vis a vis their loca- tion in various social groups. It also tries to understand the existing data gaps in capturing home based workers thereby attempting to locate the gender con- cerns in data sources for providing full visibility to the informal economy. The paper tries to provide policy recommendations for addressing the concerns associated with home-based workers and larger questions on reducing gendered vulnerabilities across social groups for a sustained labour market participation. The paper is based on secondary data from several governmental sources includ- ing the Census, National Sample Survey (NSS), Time Use Survey 1998–99 and the Economic Census. Keywords Home based work, informal work, statistical invisibility, unpaid work, social security, time use surveys ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change 1–28 © 2019 SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/2455632719880848 journals.sagepub.com/home/jws The article was presented as a paper at the International Conference on ‘Long Term Perspectives on Home Based Work’ held during 23–24 May 2018 at Stockholm, Sweden. 1 Fellow, V. V. Giri National Labour Institute, Noida, India. Corresponding author: Ellina Samantroy, Fellow, V. V. Giri National Labour Institute, Sector 24, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India. E-mail: ellinasroy.vvgnli@gov.in