The role of gender in populism is widely acknowledged, yet its dynamics remain complex. Empirical evidence consistently shows that men are more likely than women to support populist radical right parties, though this gender gap is often overemphasised (Spierings & Zaslove, 2015). This paper considers populist attitudes as an explanatory factor for the gender gap through socialisation and explores a new causal mechanism: caregiving, focusing on two life transitions: childbearing and eldercare.Prior research primarily examines life transitions and populist attitudes through economic lenses (Davou & Demertzis, 2014; Kriesi & Pappas, 2015) and without adopting a longitudinal perspective. Childbearing, a pivotal event, affects men and women differently. While motherhood demobilises women politically (Bhatti et al., 2018), their engagement remains intact (Jennings, 1983). We posit that childbearing heightens awareness of political issues like social policies, childcare, and education, influencing populist attitudes.Eldercare, by contrast, imposes emotional, physical, and financial strains that constrain social participation (Hirst, 2004). These responsibilities may reduce populist attitudes by disrupting socialisation and amplifying concerns about eldercare options.We expect that gender moderates these effects, as caregiving is usually associated with traditional gender roles. This paper develops a novel theoretical framework by combining these caring-related life transitions and how they affect populist attitudes, including gender, using panel data collected in Spain between 2019 and 2024. Fixed-effect models reveal that having a child affects men by decreasing their populist attitudes, and the relationship between eldercare and populism is not affected by gender, although it decreases populist attitudes.