Abstract Scholars often assume that policies fall harmoniously under the umbrella of one policy paradigm. Policies of the Dutch state conflict on the work–care dimension of the welfare state. The government wants to increase women’s labor participation, while also wanting a bigger slice of care services to be provided by citizens. These inconsistent policies have culminated in the decentralization of long-term care (LTC) in the Netherlands in 2015. I use a multi-level method including a discourse policy analysis and a focus group with a Q-method-inspired exercise to explore the policy paradigms and the policy context of the work–care dimension of the welfare state in the cabinet period of the LTC reform. This study finds that distinctive conservative care ideas color the social investment paradigm in the Netherlands and that different ministries adhere to different paradigms, explaining the inconsistent policies on the work–care dimension of the Dutch welfare state.