This advocacy brief argues that the South African government has a much greater role to play in supporting female caregivers in family care work if it is to transform gender and racialised inequalities that are currently being experienced and reproduced. The findings of the research indicate the dire economic and social consequences of overlooking the gendered aspects of family care work of older persons and argues that the lack of policy action in this area is a failure against the State’s own commitments to fight gender equality and is evidence of the need to remind the State about the BpfA.