Ageing in Australia and the Increased Need for Care Mel Gray & Milena Heinsch # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract In this paper, we argue that the biggest challenge facing an Ageing Australia is care, specifically, the labour shortages in the care industry and the high demand for care, which exceeds the supply. We propose that this situation has arisen out of the extremely divergent discourses about the need for care, from feminist to neoliberal, managerialist responses. The aged care context in Australia is predominantly female, because women live longer than men, and 90% of formal and informal carers are women. We therefore see the continuing relevance of a gendered view of care and believe that the feminist ethics of care is a theory which offers much to our understanding of ageing in Australia. To illustrate key issues for older people and their families within the aged care system in Australia, a case study is presented and referred to throughout the paper. Keywords Ageing . Australia . Care . Ethics of care . Gender . Social work In this paper, we argue that the biggest challenge facing an Ageing Australia is care, specifically, labour shortages in the care industry and the high demand for care which exceeds the supply. We propose that this situation has arisen out of the extremely divergent discourses about the need for care, from feminist to neoliberal, managerialist responses. Postfeminists of the New Right argue that feminists have caused the problem by convincing women that unpaid care is not a valued activity and should be accounted for financially. The feminist movement has been accompanied by an increasing number of women entering the workforce, leaving a Ageing Int DOI 10.1007/s12126-009-9046-3 M. Gray (*) : M. Heinsch The Australian Institute for Social Inclusion and Wellbeing, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia e-mail: Mel.Gray@newcastle.edu.au