This article analyses the formulation, adoption, implementation and evaluation of the Elder Care Allowance (APA) since 2001 at the national and departmental levels, with a fine-grained case study of implementation in one department. We show that despite elder care being highly feminized, this policy instrument was gender blind when it was put on the agenda and adopted. When it was implemented at the departmental level, the room for manoeuvre has not been used to reduce gender inequality, and at the national level, a recent movement to gender policy evaluation has not yet produced significant effects with regard to elder care. Thus, rather than transforming gender norms, it has led to a kind of gender accommodation that reflects existing gender relations.