IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v15y2025i4p101-d1635859.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Vulnerability and Injustices Faced by Young Carers in Developed Societies

Author

Listed:
  • Gottfried Schweiger

    (Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria)

Abstract

Around 2–8% of children and adolescents in developed societies are young carers, who provide care for ill, disabled, or addicted family members. This paper investigates the vulnerability and multidimensional injustices faced by young carers, drawing on empirical studies—both qualitative and quantitative—and social theory to reveal how young carers navigate their roles within the broader context of social inequality, highlighting the social structures and mechanisms that contribute to their marginalization and the detrimental consequences for their social inclusion, well-being, and personal development. The methodology of this article is a narrative analysis of relevant empirical research on young carers, combined with an analysis of this literature through a normative framework of social justice, which examines four dimensions of justice in order to highlight the vulnerability of young carers. (1) Firstly, young carers are often pushed into their situation because of economic and social constraints, which do not allow the family to find a different solution. Economic inequalities lead to and enforce caring obligations and have a cumulative negative effect on the young carer. Limited resources can be problematic for social inclusion, and when combined with caring obligations, they are corrosive. (2) Secondly, young carers are often victims of moral blackmail, which is that they are trapped in a situation where it would be morally wrong for them to act otherwise. Such moral blackmail can be carried out by those who are cared for, by the family and relatives or even by society, which could, but does not provide alternatives to young carers. (3) Thirdly, young carers are often manipulated to accept their caring obligations through distorted social norms and practices. Other than in the case of moral blackmail, such young carers do not care because they want to do the morally right thing and do have no alternatives available, but because they internalized that it would be normal for them to do so. Two concepts are useful to capture this aspect: adaptive preferences and indoctrination. (4) Fourthly, young people caring is often a form of exploitation, in that it takes unfair advantage of the young carer by receiving something from them, without giving an equivalent in return (and harming them in the process).

Suggested Citation

  • Gottfried Schweiger, 2025. "The Vulnerability and Injustices Faced by Young Carers in Developed Societies," Societies, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-16, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:15:y:2025:i:4:p:101-:d:1635859
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/4/101/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/4/101/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Loredana Cerbara & Giulia Ciancimino & Antonio Tintori, 2022. "Are We Still a Sexist Society? Primary Socialisation and Adherence to Gender Roles in Childhood," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Serene Khader, 2009. "Adaptive Preferences and Procedural Autonomy," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 169-187.
    3. Marianne Saragosa & Melissa Frew & Shoshana Hahn-Goldberg & Ani Orchanian-Cheff & Howard Abrams & Karen Okrainec, 2022. "The Young Carers’ Journey: A Systematic Review and Meta Ethnography," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-25, May.
    4. Miriam Teschl & Flavio Comim, 2005. "Adaptive Preferences and Capabilities: Some Preliminary Conceptual Explorations," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(2), pages 229-247.
    5. Aya K. Abe, 2019. "Developing Deprivation Index for Children Taking into Account of Adaptive Preferences," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(2), pages 647-665, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vecchio, Giovanni, 2020. "Microstories of everyday mobilities and opportunities in Bogotá: A tool for bringing capabilities into urban mobility planning," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. David Alexander Clark, 2011. "Adaptation and development: issues, evidence and policy relevance," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 15911, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    3. Yuka Fujimoto & Jasim Uddin, 2022. "Inclusive Leadership for Reduced Inequality: Economic–Social–Economic Cycle of Inclusion," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 563-582, December.
    4. Søren Harnow Klausen, 2020. "Understanding Older Adults’ Wellbeing from a Philosophical Perspective," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(7), pages 2629-2648, October.
    5. Gasper, D.R., 2006. "What is the capability approach?: its core, rationale, partners and dangers," ISS Working Papers - General Series 19187, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    6. HaeRan Shin, 2011. "Spatial Capability for Understanding Gendered Mobility for Korean Christian Immigrant Women in Los Angeles," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(11), pages 2355-2373, August.
    7. Jürgen Volkert & Friedrich Schneider, 2011. "The Application of the Capability Approach to High-Income OECD Countries: A Preliminary Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 3364, CESifo.
    8. Mark Pelling & Karen O’Brien & David Matyas, 2015. "Adaptation and transformation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 113-127, November.
    9. Mario Biggeri & Jean-Francois Trani & Parul Bakhshi, 2009. "Le teorie della Disabilità: una Reinterpretazione Attraverso l'Approccio delle Capability Amartya Sen," Working Papers - Economics wp2009_04.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    10. Loredana Cerbara & Giulia Ciancimino & Gianni Corsetti & Antonio Tintori, 2023. "The (Un)Equal Effect of Binary Socialisation on Adolescents’ Exposure to Pornography: Girls’ Empowerment and Boys’ Sexism from a New Representative National Survey," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-15, June.
    11. Henderson, Heath & Follett, Lendie, 2020. "A Bayesian framework for estimating human capabilities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    12. Russell, Helen & Smyth, Emer, 2024. "Caregiving among Young Adults in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS168.
    13. Gonzalo Salas & Andrea Vigorito, 2019. "Subjective Well-Being and Adaptation. The Case of Uruguay," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 685-703, July.
    14. Marco Ricardo Téllez Cabrera, 2018. "Giving arguments to operationalize health capabilities in economic evaluations of health interventions," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 20(2), pages 240-255, October.
    15. Wilfred Dolfsma & Deborah Figart & Robert McMaster & Martha Starr, 2012. "Promoting Research on Intersections of Economics, Ethics, and Social Values: Editorial," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(2), pages 155-163, June.
    16. Juan Telleria, 0. "Development and Participation: Whose Participation? A Critical Analysis of the UNDP’s Participatory Research Methods," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 0, pages 1-23.
    17. Margherita Bussi & Stephan Dahmen, 2012. "When ideas circulate. A walk across disciplines and different uses of the ‘capability approach’," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 18(1), pages 91-95, February.
    18. HaeRan Shin, 2008. "A New Insight into Urban Poverty: The Culture of Capability Poverty amongst Korean Immigrant Women in Los Angeles," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(4), pages 871-896, April.
    19. Gries, Thomas & Naudé, Wim, 2011. "Entrepreneurship and human development: A capability approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3-4), pages 216-224, April.
    20. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Vassilis Tselios, 2019. "Well-being, Political Decentralisation and Governance Quality in Europe," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 69-93, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:15:y:2025:i:4:p:101-:d:1635859. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.