Care Poverty and Unmet Needs: Inequalities in Theory and Practice

Abstract

This chapter places the theory of care poverty in the context of other theories of care and provides an overview of the conflicts inherent in these theories, including the idea of ‘social citizenship’ – the right to access resources to meet needs, in this case care needs. Ideas about care poverty are used to offer a theoretical way of synthesising previous conflicting theories of care, testing this against kinship versus formal care provision. The chapter concludes that the concept of care poverty enables us to talk about the need for care as a social right, to reframe our thinking away from vulnerabilities and needs and towards a more emancipatory approach to care provision. As well as ontological power, the concept also has political power. The care poverty theory needs to be empirically tested and there is work to be done in comparative social policy to examine the ideas, institutions and actors that exacerbate and alleviate care poverty.