Constructing the ‘good grandmother’: uncovering intergenerational tensions between grandparent employment and childcare in Australian policy dialogue

Abstract Globally, grandparents (particularly grandmothers) play a central role in providing regular childcare while mothers participate in employment. In many countries, childcare by grandmothers supports government policy agendas that aim to boost rates of maternal workforce participation. At the same time, mature-age (women) workers are targets of government strategies and policies aiming to boost labour market participation through extending their working lives. It is unclear whether and how expectations of grandparents’ care and work responsibilities are aligned in policy discourses. Drawing on 63 submissions to four Australian government-initiated public inquiries, this article analyses stakeholder discourses encouraging women to increase their labour market participation within a context of known barriers and challenges in the Australian childcare system. The texts offer an ideal corpus for examining the kinds of ‘model’ grandparents that feature in official discourses, and reactions to them by a range of actors in the Australian work and care policy environment. Drawing on the theory of ‘model ageing’, the article uses feminist discourse analysis to interrogate the tensions and contradictions that arise when mothers and grandmothers both become the targets for labour market policies, with a focus on the discursive portrayals of older women as both (potential) workers and childcare providers. The article contributes new knowledge by making visible the latent, normative constructions of grandparenthood shaping contemporary policymaking in the areas of early childhood education and care and women’s employment, and their implications for coherent, equitable policymaking for older adults.