The social model of disability establishes that disability arises from an interaction between a person’s physical and mental capacities and the environment in which they live. This can be connected to the capability approach, as developed by Amartya Sen, in which a person’s ‘capability set’ is the range of things they are able to be and do, given the constraints of their physical, social and economic circumstances. Disability can therefore be construed as a particular form of capability deprivation, and care identified as a capability-enabler. However care occupies an ambivalent position in this framework: receiving and giving care can enhance capabilities, but where it is the wrong kind of care, or is enforced rather than chosen, it can be a constraint. Moreover, care deficits, and care burdens, and highly unequally distributed across socio-economic groups. Centring the social determinants of care inequalities can lead us to a more nuanced appreciation of the relationship between disability, capability and care.

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