 The Vulnerability and Injustices Faced by Young Carers in Developed SocietiesGottfried Schweiger ()
Societies, 2025, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-16 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). Keywords: young carers; vulnerability; social justice; moral coercion; social inequality; structural exploitation; care work (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:15:y:2025:i:4:p:101-:d:1635859 Access Statistics for this article Societies is currently edited by Ms. Farrah Sun More articles in Societies from MDPI |
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