The experience and potential of senior citizens must be used in a sustained way in the interests of society as a whole. So the aim of senior citizens policy is to ensure that senior citizens retain their independence and self-determination for as long as possible. So the subject areas of health, social security, housing, and transport policy are especially important, as they must always include specific measures for the target group of senior citizens. Research shows that the conditions of the lives of elderly men and elderly women are different and that they have different needs. Gender Mainstreaming sees to it that this is properly documented so that measures can be better structured.

Senior citizens policy reveals numerous challenges. The social shift to single-person households, where instead of an age-integrated lifestyle an age-differentiated one is emerging, is at the same time the end of informal support systems such as the family. The rising number of older people with mental problems and the number of old people with an immigrant background also present huge problems for assistance policy for senior citizens. Moreover, deficits in the infrastructure of formal assistance are making professionalisation of the nursing care sector necessary. In all these fields it is necessary to recognise gender differences, in order to take effective measures.

Structures for assisting senior citizens should facilitate participation in the cultural, political and social sectors and guarantee provision for the rising number of people needing nursing care. In order to achieve these goals, structures for assisting senior citizens must take account of the different needs of older people. Gender Mainstreaming ensures that the due attention is given to the conditions of the lives of older men and older women, of senior citizens of various sexual orientations or of old people with an immigrant background.

Within the German Government, the Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ [German link]) has carried out a pilot project, “Gender Mainstreaming in the Impact Assessment” [ "Gender Mainstreaming in der Gesetzesfolgenabschätzung", German], in which the possible impact of a new Law concerning the Structure of Assistance for Senior Citizens has been assessed and systematically analysed from the gender perspective.

There are several gender aspects that are often important in the subject area “senior citizens”.