UN DESA Policy Brief No. 186: Gender Matters in an Ageing World – The Case for Gender-Responsive Policies

This February 2026 policy brief from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs argues that ageing policy cannot be effective if it treats older adults as a single, uniform group. Instead, it makes the case that gender remains one of the most important factors shaping how people experience ageing – influencing income security, access to care, health outcomes, living arrangements and vulnerability later in life. As populations age across regions, the brief insists that policy frameworks must move beyond demographic averages and confront the unequal realities that women and men carry into older age.

At the center of the brief is a clear warning: longer lives do not automatically translate into more secure or equitable ones. Because women are more likely to spend years in unpaid care work, face lower lifetime earnings, and enter old age with weaker pension protection, they often carry a heavier burden of inequality in later life. UN DESA argues that governments need gender-responsive policies that address these structural disadvantages across the life course – not only to improve quality of life for older women, but to build ageing systems that are fairer, more realistic and more sustainable overall.