Determinants of the social risk of caring

This article offers a framework to examine the determinants of the ‘new’ social risk of caring. It distinguishes the primary risk of being called upon to provide care and the secondary financial, health and social risks. Building on Dahlgren and Whitehead’s social determinants of health model, it shows how characteristics of the potential care dyad interact with their living and working conditions, networks, public policies and services, and social norms to produce highly unequal risks. Framing caring as a socially determined risk could stimulate thinking about ‘upstream’ influences on where caring responsibilities fall and the distribution of their material and non-material consequences.