Gendering the “Graying” of Society: A Discourse Analysis of the Care Gap

This article analyzes to what extent the “care‐gap”—that is, too few carers looking after increasing numbers of the elderly—has become part of the problem definition of the demographic shift in the Netherlands in reports of the major scientific policy advisor to the government. Do these reports still assume a gender order in which women are informal carers and men are breadwinners? What notions about gender are circulating, and is the gender order challenged by policy recommendations? With a framework for gender‐discourse analysis, the author shows that, despite increasing awareness of the care gap, the problem definition remains framed as the costs of collective provision of health care and pensions. Recommendations still assume that women will continue to provide informal care while they also enter the labor market to maintain collective provisions.