The Moral Resilience of Young People Who Care

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on findings from a qualitative study of the social wellbeing of young people caring for a close family member. The research makes a novel contribution to the international literature by examining the moral resilience of young adult carers. Focus groups or individual, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with fifteen young people in South-East England during 2018–2019. The paper explores whether young people with a seriously ill or disabled family member define and conduct themselves in moral terms and how they respond to the moral challenges of a caring life. It was found that the participants saw moral value in their caring role and their actions reflected a desire to provide compassionate care. Previous research into young adult carers had indicated that the caring role stimulated their political consciousness, but this study suggests that the role also strengthens their moral consciousness. However, designating girls as carers in early life shifts the moral responsibility to females and compounds gender inequity in caring. Hence, there is a need to address social and gender inequalities in care. In addition, healthcare professionals should recognise when statutory input is necessary to facilitate young people’s broader lifeplans.

KEYWORDS:

• Young adult carers
• wellbeing
• moral resilience
• care inequities
• gender

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all the young people who took part in the study and the voluntary organisations that helped with recruitment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Geraldine Boyle is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care, at the Open University, UK. With a background in healthcare and social policy, her research interests focus on the personal lives of women and men living with challenging conditions and those who support them; social inequalities in health and care and gendered and ethical dimensions of care. She is a member of an NHS Research Ethics Committee and an academic advisor for BBC and Open University co-productions on dementia, notably Our Dementia Choir. Her previous research included studies on decision-making by people with dementia and decisions made by healthcare professionals on behalf of people lacking capacity, funded by the ESRC and the Dept. of Health.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported internally by the Open University.