How should ‘‘care’’ be defined and measured in ways that enhance our understanding of the impact of economic development on women? This paper addresses this question, suggesting several possible approaches to the development of indices that would measure gender differences in responsibility for the financial and temporal care of dependents. Touching on the ‘care economy’, the paper discusses six potential new indices of care responsibility: individual disposable income, individual disposable time, gender care spending parity index, gender direct care parity index, gender overall care parity index, and the gender care empowerment index.