The dependent and non-contributing: representation of older adults as a demographic alarm in planning policy

Population ageing is becoming a critical planning condition. How this phenomenon is represented as a planning concern has implications for planning outcomes. Using Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be’ (WPR) as a discourse-analytical framework and Susan Fainstein’s ‘The Just City’ as a normative spatial justice theory, this article critically scrutinizes how older adults and eldercare are represented in Swedish municipal planning policies. To do this, comprehensive plans from eight Swedish municipalities were selected based on demographic, socio-economic, and geographical variations. Analysis of their comprehensive plans revealed that older adults are recognized as planning concerns, but they are framed as care-dependent and non-contributors in predominantly pro-growth municipal planning policy. By portraying older adults as a hindrance to growth and eldercare as a welfare challenge, comprehensive plans tend to reproduce the discourse around demographic alarm and an eldercare-led care crisis. Biased representation of this kind tends to silence recognition of the diverse identities and capabilities of older adults and undermines their rights to equitable care, compromising the spatial justice for older adults as well as the ethical principles of planning for a just society.